Sandy’s brother Rick has been pretty sick lately. Since Sandy is his Medical POA, she’s been pretty busy these days as a result. Rick and Sandy are pretty close, keeping in touch several times a day, most days. Rick lives in Wisconsin Rapids in the Winter and in Bancroft, Wisconsin in the Summer at a campground.

Rick has had several falls recently, and his health has gotten a bit worse. He was hospitalized in Wisconsin Rapids on 02/24/2022, stayed overnight in the ER, but they had no beds for him, so he was transferred to UW Madison Hospital on 02/25/2022. We went to visit him on 02/26/2022 and he was on a ventilator. Sandy was able to see him, but due to visitation restrictions I had to stay in the waiting room. He didn’t wake up at all when we were there, but Sandy talked to him anyway.

They said he had problems breathing overnight, so they had to put him on the ventilator and tie his arms down to prevent him from pulling out the tubes. He has been diagnosed with Rhabdomyolysis (often called rhabdo). It is a serious medical condition that can be fatal or result in permanent disability. Rhabdo occurs when damaged muscle tissue releases its proteins and electrolytes into the blood. These substances can damage the heart and kidneys and cause permanent disability or even death.

As of today, 2/27/2022, Sandy was told that he now has a partially-collapsed lung, which they found after doing a Chest CT, so they have adjusted his venilator accordingly. They have also run more tests, and as of today he does appear to be improving. They are expecting at least another five days or longer in the hospital before he may be well enough to be transferred to a rehab facility for further help, if he keeps improving.

They are testing him for MRSA and HIV today. He is already in isolation due to the rhabdo, so Sandy had to fully gown up in order to visit him. The Chest CT also showed no blood clots, so that’s good. They’ve also put in a feeding tube today. I will update this post as we learn more.

Monday, Feb. 28th, 2022 – Sandy reminded me that I forgot to mention the fact that Rick is also going to withdrawal from alcohol, so that’s another complication of his current condition. Today they confirmed Rick has tested positive for MRSA, and they did an MRI of his brain and stomach to check for damage from bacteria. They also did a Transesophageal Echocardiogram (TEE) today and he now has a feeding tube inserted. They will start giving him the regular meds he takes via his feeding tube as much as possible, and they are going to start weaning him off of the ventilator a little at a time.

Tuesday, March 1st, 2022 – They started weaning Rick off the ventilator today by shutting it off temporarily and they said he did very well breathing on his own. They will do this procedure a few more times before they take him off of the ventilator completely. The TEE test was delayed until today, and his nurse will call when those test results come back.

Wednesday, March 2nd, 2022 – The results of the TEE test came back normal today, so that’s one good thing. They had also tried removing him from the ventilator temporarily today, to see how he does, but he had a very difficult time and couldn’t breathe on his own yet, so they had to put it back in.

Thursday, March 3rd, 2022 – Rick was completely taken off of the ventilator today and he is breathing on his own with a low dose of oxygen. He has some delirium and confusion and the doctor says this will last a few days. They did a bedside swallow study today and he is very sore from the ventilator tube and to get a better picture they will do a regular swallow study in X-Ray tomorrow. He still has the feeding tube in, but after the full swallow study tomorrow they will try to feed him by mouth with soft foods. Tomorrow is Rick’s birthday, by the way.

Friday, March 4th, 2022 – Rick’s nurse said he had a bit of a rough night and was very confused. But Sandy was able to talk to Rick on the phone today with his nurse’s help with the phone. She wished him a Happy Birthday and told him to cooperate with the nurses and doctors so he can get better and come home. He seemed pretty good on the phone and aware of what was going on when she talked to him.

Saturday, March 5th, 2022 – This morning we took a trip up to Rick’s apartment in Wisconsin Rapids to take care of some of his affairs while he’s in the hospital. Rick is doing better today, Sandy talked to him on the phone again while we were on our way up there. Rick said he wants to check himself out of the hospital, but Sandy set him straight and explained that he has been in bed this whole time and will probably need to go to rehab for a short time to get back to normal again. He said “I know…” and seemed to understand. The nurse told Sandy today that they’ll be moving him to a regular room and out of CCU in a few days, so that’s great news. Sandy stressed that to Rick as well. We met several of Rick’s friends today, on our trip: Jerry and his girlfriend Sandy, Tom, and another Sandy, who is the owner of the bar at Rick’s campground, Ponderosa Pines. Three Sandys and a Tom & Jerry…hmm… There’s a good joke in there somewhere. Jerry even bought us lunch at Ponderosa Pines. They’re all very nice, friendly, and very concerned about Rick’s health. He has a great support system up North, and we were glad to learn that.

Sunday, March 6th, 2022 – Rick’s doing better. He called Sandy three times today, on his own, from his hospital room phone. He even got up and used the bathroom several times. They’re going to move him to a regular room tomorrow. Things are looking up! Thanks to everyone for your well wishes, thoughts and prayers.

Monday, March 7th, 2022 – Rick slept through the night last night and had physical therapy today. His oxygen line was removed, so he’s no longer on oxygen at all. All other lines were removed as well, except for a PICC line, which will be used to administer antibiotics to treat the MRSA. His social worker said they are looking for a rehab or short-term nursing home facility that he can move to for about three weeks because he still has to take IV antibiotics for that long. A swallow study was also done today and he can now have soft food and he is on a low-carb diet. He lost 15 lbs so far during his hospital stay.

Tuesday, March 8th, 2022 – They removed Rick’s feed tube today, and he’s taking walks with a walker for physical therapy every day now. In one to three days he willl be transferred to Manor Care, a nursing home in Kenosha, for physical therapy and IV antibiotics. This will last approximately three weeks while he is still on the IV, then he will stay with us in Kenosha until he feels well enough to return home to Wisconsin Rapids.

Wednesday, March 9th – Rick will be transferred to ManorCare in Kenosha tomorrow afternoon for rehab and IV antibiotics. He’s getting better every day!

It’s been awhile. I hate that I haven’t posted in while, but this happens a lot. Things have been pretty busy lately. We’ve been working a lot on the house, our health, and even my employment has taken a turn for the better. That’s our trifecta! All of this now takes up a lot more of my time than before, leaving less and less time for me to sit here and type up a post. But it’s Saturday night and we just finished watching American Underdog–a great football movie, and a true story. Sandy and I both really enjoyed it a lot. So I felt like posting.

Since this is my first post of 2022, I should go back a bit. I lost a total of 48 lbs. last year. That’s my personal best, and a record I intend to break, hopefully this year. I’d settle for 50 lbs., but the more the better. Gardein actually tastes pretty good, and with that and walking 3-4 miles every weekday at work, I think it’ll be a done deal. Sandy and I are also doing 16/8 Intermittent Fasting too, which is helping us both.

Sandy, by the way, is having knee replacement surgery Monday. She’s been in such pain lately, since she fell on her left knee recently and made it much worse. I feel her pain, and know exactly how it is, having gone through the same thing a few years ago. So I suggested she go to the same doctor I went to. He did an excellent job with my right knee replacement, everything went very well and turned out great, and now I can walk my ass off (literally) , I have no more knee pain, and I’m finally seeing some good improvement in my health. So now he’s going to do her left knee. Together we’re the Bionic Man and Bionic Woman, with one complete set of bionic legs between us. Queue the theme music…

More to come soon…

I ordered a Ring Chime last week from Best Buy. They didn’t have any in-store at the time, so I ordered it to be picked up curb-side, as I have several times in the past since the beginning of the pandemic. Yesterday (Sunday 11/8/21) I received a text stating that my item was ready for pickup, so I set aside a time during the day to run out and pick it up.

I parked in one of the reserved curbside-pickup parking spots and used the text message I had received to “check-in”. Best Buy requires you parking spot #, the type of vehicle you’re in and its color. After completing my check-in it said someone would be out with my order shortly. This normally takes just a few minutes, then I get another text message stating someone is on the way out with my item(s). This time, however, someone cam to my car and apologized, explaining that either their system messed up, or someone misplaced my item, because they haven’t been able to locate it yet. He said he was going to go look for it, and if he still can’t find it, he’ll take one from stock and give me that one. He said he’d be back shortly.

Good thing I wasn’t in a hurry. So I waited. And waited. After about 30 minutes of waiting I was getting pretty frustrated and contemplated leaving. Then someone else came out – a manager – empty-handed again, so it didn’t look promising. He explained that their system must have had a glitch or something, because my item definitely wasn’t at the store, though their system said it was. He knew how long I had been waiting, so he offered to make it right by giving me a $50 Best Buy gift card. He said they will correct the issue and get my item re-ordered and sent to the store,. or they could even ship it to my house, but the gift card pretty much makes it free, as the Ring Chime Pro costs about $50 itself.

He kept apologizing for the error and the time that I wasted waiting. I didn’t appear angry or anything, just a little frustrated. I said it was alright, no problem, this is fine. He gave me the gift card and after I left I got the text that my Ring Chime Pro had been re-ordered. He said that, if I wanted to, I could even return it when it came in, and purchase it again with the gift card if I wanted to truly make it free. I knew that, but as long as the gift card never expires, there’s no hurry and I’m sure I’ll make use of it in the near future. Returning the item to the store would be a last-resort task, only it if was defective. The less exposure to others the better.

I went home empty-handed and a little disappointed, but it was free now, so I feel better about the whole thing. Except I wish I knew exactly what went wrong. Can I trust Best Buy’s ordering system anymore? This is the first time I’ve had an issue with it at all. But now I’ll always be wondering when I order something… I just hope, if it screws up again, they’ll be just as nice next time.

I’ve been struggling for weeks with a very annoying issue on my smartphone, and I just now found the solution. It was quite the journey, and very very frustrating knowing that people usually come to ME for solutions to problems like this, so if I was having a problem myself, I knew I had to keep at it until I figured out the solution.

The Problem: My smartphone would pause every 5 minutes whenever I had a Bluetooth speaker connected. I could be in the car connected to my car’s Bluetooth or walking with my Bluetooth earbuds on and whether I was on YouTube watching a video, on Plex watching a TV Show or movie, or listening to an audiobook on Audible, it would pause every 5 minutes like clockwork.

I checked all of the obvious things first, of course: Sleeping apps, battery saver settings, etc., and after turning all of them off completely, for every app, the problem remained, so I took to the web. I found several articles with lists of possible solutions, many of them listing the same solutions. I tried them all. Still the same issue remained. Day after day, week after week, driving me crazy. It’s really really annoying, especially when I was listening to a particularly good book or watching a video or movie I was really interested in. Each interruption prompted me to dig deeper and keep looking for a solution.

I even went so far as preparing to wipe my phone completely and start over fresh. I knew this might resolve the issue, but it would probably leave me still wondering what caused the issue in the first place, and I might be stuck wondering if the problem will just come back again, possibly even right after the refresh, to make me even more frustrated and annoyed. Not to mention the time I would have wasted setting everything up just the way I like it., not knowing if something within my particular setup was what was causing the issue in the first place.

With the reset in mind, I also began looking at just upgrading to a new smartphone in the process. Why not get some better speed and features along the way. Maybe the issue I’m having has something to do with this model of smartphone (Samsung Galaxy Note20 Ultra 5G), who knows? After some research the Google Pixel 6 Pro looked pretty sweet – the pure Android experience without all the Samsung crap, including the Samsung Store and all of the bloatware they include on their phones (which I remove as much of as I can), and it also comes in a 512GB model, which is a new standard I live by. It’s a fairly rare storage size for a smartphone, but it’s the only size I’ll buy anymore after experiencing my last couple smartphones with this much storage. It’s worth the extra money for all the extra breathing room it provides.

So with the problem still ever-present, yesterday I started focusing more on the significance of the exact 5-minute intervals of the pauses. Why 5 minutes exactly? Something has to be happening that’s triggering that pause, and it has to be something that uses Bluetooth. Then it hit me: My Dexcom G6 Blood Glucose patch is connected with Bluetooth and it sends a reading every 5 minutes!! BINGO, I thought, that HAS to be the issue. Now I had to think of what I need to do next to confirm this theory, as well as what I would have to do if this was the issue. Will I need to get a different model of glucose patch? Is there an update for the Dexcom G6 application that I need to install? What about my smartwatch? I was using the Dexcom watchface that comes with the Dexcom G6 as my smartwatch’s display, so this way I can see me readings at any time by pressing my smartwatch’s screen. I get a nice graph of my reading history as well as my current glucose level. Using that watchface, I realized that, itself, could be the issue – the watchface needs to update every 5 minutes after my phone gets a new reading from my patch, all via Bluetooth. So I turned off that watchface immediately and tested it. Fail. The problem remained.

There is no easy way to stop or pause the Dexcom G6 without replacing some hardware – either the transmitter or the sensor – so doing that would cost some money, and I’m not even actually sure that’s the issue. So I took to the Internet again, this time specifying “Dexcom” in my search term along with “Android bluetooth 5 minutes pause”. I quickly found a few posts on Reddit that insisted that they had the same issue, definitely from the Dexcom G6, and asking how they could fix it, if there was a patch for the software, etc… Then, after some back and forth discussion, someone else responded stating they thought they had the same issue with their Dexcom device, but it was actually the Roku app. The user said “just uninstall the Roku app and your issue will be done.” Then, after that post were several more from other users saying “Thank you, that worked!” in various ways, confirming that just having the Roku app installed, which should have nothing to do at all with Bluetooth, was causing the issue. It sounded pretty sketchy to me, but I figured it was simpler than everything else I was about to try – just uninstall the Roku app, and if that didn’t solve the issue, just re-install it.

I uninstalled the Roku app then started playing an audiobook as I drove home from work, most expecting to find out, in about 5 minutes, that those people were wrong–at least in MY case–and it wasn’t the Roku app. But they were spot-on. I made it all the way home, and listened to my audiobook all the way, about 40 minutes straight, with no pauses at all. The Roku app somehow causes this issue. I haven’t looked into it further yet, but I certainly will later on.

Right now I’m just so relieved my issue is completely gone now, and I don’t have to wipe it, replace it, or waste any more time troubleshooting. The only benefit I got from this whole experience was that I’m now sure I will definitely be abandoning Samsung phones, at least for one upgrade cycle. They stopping making their “Note” line of phones with the Note 20 (the one I have) being the last of the Notes–these are their phone model with the built-in stylus so you can write and draw on the screen with a pencil-like stylus. That’s a big feature I really liked in my phone, along with the 512GB of storage. So without that option in the new models, I compared all of the other pluses and minuses and I’m pretty sure the Pixel 6 Pro will be my next smartphone, hands-down. I am well aware that they will still sell a stylus that will work with their new phone models, but it won’t be built-in and there just won’t be that seamless integration that the Note series has always had. And I know I can also use a stylus with the Pixel 6 Pro, if I wanted to, so there are alternatives for that piece of the puzzle.

I also learned, during this fiasco, that you shouldn’t summarily reject someone’s response to a post offering an alternative solution to a problem, no matter how silly it might sound. It might just be true, as it was in this case. I never would have found the solution without finding that post, or one similar to it (I have actually found several now). I have over 500 apps installed on my phone, and the Roku app would definitely have been one of the last, if not THE last app I would have suspected as having caused this issue.

First World problem.

Its getting scarier out here…

This week (09/27/2021-10/01/2021) I bumped my lunch walks to 4 miles.  My weight loss rate has decreased a lot recently, and I’m trying to find ways to keep losing at a decent rate.  We’ll see how it goes.

I got stopped at about the 1/2 mile mark on today’s walk.  This happens much more than I’d like, and always slows me down from reaching my goal for the today.  Sometimes it’s a homeless person, or someone who’s “stranded in Waukegan” with no money and no way to get to get to the bus station (like that’s going to help you if you don’t have any money anyway), some just seem to want to explain their life story to me… It doesn’t happen often, but over the years it’s happened much more than I’d like.

Today it was a guy who had no phone, but needed to borrow my phone to call for an Uber.  I had pulled out my earbuds, interrupting a very interesting TWiT podcast I was listening to, and said “No, I can’t stop, I’m on a timer” as I briskly kept walking.  My pace was about 3 mph according to Runkeeper, and I kept on walking, so he starting walking alongside me, still explaining his situation, insisting he won’t take my cell phone or anything (red flag #1).  He said he’d even keep up with me, asking how far I walk and if I did it every day…which, in itself seemed a little stalkerish (red flag #2).

I thought about it for a moment, counting the few red flags in the current situation, thinking that maybe, if he really needs to make just this little phone call, his willingness to keep pace with me might be enough effort to convince me he’s legitimate.  Ok, what the hell.  I paused my podcast, took off my wireless Bluetooth earbuds, and handed them to him.  I told him to put them on.  After he did (both of us still walking quickly) he gave me the number he needed to call, I dialed it, and he reached whomever he was calling, explained his need for an Uber, gave the closest nearby address, and ended the call.  He cleaned off the earbuds and gave them back to me, thanking me for the use of my phone, then turned back in the opposite direction to stay at the address he had given to the person on the phone.

I figured, if worse comes to worst, it would definitely be much easier to lose a pair of earbuds than to lose my smartphone, and if this guy was legit, I don’t have a problem helping someone out a little.  I would hope someone would do the same for me if the situation were reversed.

It all turned out ok, and I even managed to still clear my 4-mile goal for my walk…but just barely…I had to jog a little–about 50 to 75 paces at a time is about all I can handle–then back to brisk walking speed–but it made up enough time to still make it back to work within the 90 minutes I am allotted for lunch.

Good to know not everyone out there has an ulterior motive for the things they do, and sometimes they just need a little help.  Then again, neither of us were masked.  It all happened too fast, and I don’t even keep a mask with me when I walk, since it’s outdoors and I try to stay clear of everyone else.  Can you catch COVID from contaminated earbuds?  Uh oh.

Kevin and I watched the new Candyman movie the other day, which was sort of a reboot of the Candyman series. We thought it was really good, lots of jump-scares and great special effects that grabbed us, and a pretty good take on the story and legend of Candyman. That’s about all I can say about it really. But while I was looking for information about this upcoming movie weeks ago, I stumbled onto a little documentary from 2010 called “Candyman” that I had never seen before.

It was a somewhat depressing documentary on the REAL creator of Jelly Belly jelly beans, David Klein. That’s right, someone else created the Jelly Belly jelly bean, not the Goelitz candy company. I was really pretty surprised, since they seemed to omitted this guy completely from the history of Jelly Belly, or he was made such a tiny footnote in their history that no one notices. Either way, this poor guy created the Jelly Belly jelly bean and now he’s got nothing.

The documentary explains it all very well, in sad detail, with no fancy “re-enactments” or actors. This is the real deal – everyone involved, in their own words. To make a long story short, it was David Klein who created this bean shape and many of the initial flavors of the beans, and he made some money, but not a lot. He mostly just liked giving away candy, especially on his birthday, and I think he still does to this day. He’s making other candies these days, just trying to stay afloat.

He sold the rights to the Jelly Belly brand to the Goelitz Candy Company in 1976 for a total of $4.8 million, half of which went to his partner, to be paid out over 20 years in monthly payments of $20,000. So David Klein got $10,000 per month up until 1996 and that was it. Unfortunately no royalties were mentioned in the contact at all, so that was it – $4.8 million over 20 years, period. Jelly Belly makes over $100 million a year now, and David Klein doesn’t get a penny. That’s really sad.

You would think a company of that size, or even just one of it’s high-paid executive family members, would feel something, at least, and work in a way to compensate the actual creator somehow, but no. I even went to Jelly Belly’s “company history” on their website, and there are dozens of pages documenting their history year-by-year, beginning in 1869 when Gustav Goelitz opened his first candy business. The “1976” page says “The breakthrough recipe of the Mini Jelly Bean inspired the first eight flavors of Jelly Belly beans…” That’s it. The Goelitz company went on from then making all kinds of candy, but clearly, David Klein’s Jelly Belly beans have made it the most money and has enabled them to be successful with all of their other candy brands. After watching this, I have lost a lot of respect for the Goelitz Candy Company. Their history just isn’t complete. I can’t even believe this documentary was published in 2010 – 11 years ago – and still nothing has changed. It’s just sad.

20 years ago everything changed. Here’s a link to all of my past 9/11 posts. I have nothing more to add, so this year I’m just going to post the lyrics of one of my favorite 9/11 songs:

Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning) – by Alan Jackson

Where were you when the world stopped turning on that September day?
Were you in the yard with your wife and children
Or working on some stage in L.A.?

Did you stand there in shock
At the sight of that black smoke
Risin’ against that blue sky?
Did you shout out in anger
In fear for your neighbor
Or did you just sit down and cry?

Did you weep for the children who lost their dear loved ones
Pray for the ones who don’t know?
Did you rejoice for the people who walked from the rubble
And sob for the ones left below?

Did you burst out with pride
For the red, white and blue
And the heroes who died
Just doin’ what they do?

Did you look up to heaven for some kind of answer
And look at yourself and what really matters?

I’m just a singer of simple songs
I’m not a real political man
I watch CNN
But I’m not sure I can tell you
The difference in Iraq and Iran
But I know Jesus and I talk to God
And I remember this from when I was young
Faith, hope and love are some good things He gave us
And the greatest is love

Where were you when the world stopped turning on that September day?
Teaching a class full of innocent children
Or driving down some cold interstate?

Did you feel guilty
‘Cause you’re a survivor
In a crowded room did you feel alone?
Did you call up your mother
And tell her you loved her?
Did you dust off that Bible at home?

Did you open your eyes, hope it never happened
Close your eyes and not go to sleep?
Did you notice the sunset the first time in ages
Or speak to some stranger on the street?

Did you lay down at night and think of tomorrow
Go out and buy you a gun?
Did you turn off that violent old movie you’re watchin’
And turn on “I Love Lucy” reruns?

Did you go to a church and hold hands with some strangers
Stand in line and give your own blood?
Did you just stay home and cling tight to your family
Thank God you had somebody to love?

I’m just a singer of simple songs
I’m not a real political man
I watch CNN
But I’m not sure I can tell you
The difference in Iraq and Iran
But I know Jesus and I talk to God
And I remember this from when I was young
Faith, hope and love are some good things He gave us
And the greatest is love

I’m just a singer of simple songs
I’m not a real political man
I watch CNN
But I’m not sure I can tell you
The difference in Iraq and Iran
But I know Jesus and I talk to God
And I remember this from when I was young
Faith, hope and love are some good things He gave us
And the greatest is love

And the greatest is love
And the greatest is love

Where were you when the world stopped turning on that September day?

Our black chihuahua Shadow recently got sick. We noticed he refused to eat and wouldn’t jump up on the furniture on his own. He looked kind of scared all the time too. We checked his body and legs and he didn’t appear or act like he had any pain anywhere and wasn’t limping. On the second day of this behavior, we figured we’d better get him checked out, so we took him to the vet. They checked him and did blood work. He didn’t have an issue with his anal sacs, as Socks once did, so that wasn’t the issue, and his blood work came back fine, no issues. He was prescribed a minor pain pill for any pain he might have, everyone thinking maybe he fell when jumping off of our high bed or something. We have steps for the dogs next to the bed, but they sometimes get excited and skip the steps. Nope, it didn’t seem to be an injury either.

This was about a week ago, and Shadow perked up a couple days later and returned to normal again. Well, the other day, as I was mowing the lawn in the backyard, I stopped at what looked like a large dark spot in the lawn, next to our chain link fence. I stopped the lawnmower and took a closer look. After examining the spot closer, I realized what I was looking at, and almost vomited. The horrible smell, along with looking at the mess, was just overwhelming. It was the remains of another bunny, and there wasn’t much left of it. I could see a few feet, a lot of rotting guts, bones, and a portion of its head. The rest was bugs, flies and maggots, all feasting on the carcass. It was really something worthy of a Stephen King novel, something I hadn’t ever seen in-person, only in the movies and read in books.

I had been trying to get the lawn mowed before dark, and I was already cutting it close when I found the horrible mess, so I used that an an excuse to run in the house and ask Sandy if she could help me by cleaning up the mess quickly, while I finished the lawn, so we could get it done by dark. We didn’t want the dogs getting at it again, as this had to be what effected Shadow several days earlier–though it had zero effect on Tiger–but he might be just a little smarter than Shadow when it comes to what to eat and what not to.

Sandy knows I’m a bit squeamish when it comes to things like this, and I can easily start gagging and vomit myself, just seeing or smelling a pile of vomit from a dog or another human, so she accepted the task, got a bag and gloves, and cleaned up the pile, tying the bag, and putting it in the garbage can, while I quickly finished mowing as it got dark.

It was pretty dark by the time both of us finished our tasks. The next day was garbage day, so we took the garbage can to the curb for the automated garbage truck pickup. The next morning we had one more bag of garbage from the house to be thrown out, so I walked it to the can at the curb before I left for work and found that the garbage can itself was covered in maggots. It looked like someone had poured a bunch of rice on the cover, until I looked closer and realized it was moving. Eeeew. It wasn’t easy to flip the lid up to open it without touching one, but I managed, and oh, the stench. There it was again. I quickly threw the garbage in, closed the lid and left. Had I stayed a moment longer, I would have left my breakfast there as well.

Kevin was off work that day, so while I was at work, Sandy had him wash the garbage can out completely and hose it down thoroughly before returning it to the backyard. That wrapped up our entire fiasco with Bunny #2. Shadow and Tiger killed another bunny last winter, as you might recall, I think I posted that one on my website as well. I don’t know how they always manage not to get a single scratch or blood or anything on them when they do this, or if maybe just one of them (my guess would be Shadow) does the actual killing, but they’ve managed to not get “caught” yet. Bunnies certainly must not be very good fighters. The bunny murders are always pretty mysterious and we haven’t caught them “in the act” yet. We’re really curious though, as they’re such friendly and playful to our family and relatives (except Mikie) and you’d never think they were even remotely capable of carrying out such a task. No, I didn’t take any photos this time. I have my limits. But at least this solved the mystery of what effected Shadow the previous week. If we had only gone out and checked the yard at that time, we might have saved a $300+ vet bill. Live and learn.

Shout out to these guys! Yesterday (8/18/2021) I was working as usual and had my phone (Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra) sitting on its stand on my desk displaying my blood sugar readings as I normally do, when the screen turned off. I have a special app installed that is supposed to prevent the automatic screen shutoff and auto-dimming that normally occurs after several minutes, so this startled me. I’ve been using that app since I got the phone, but only use it when I need the screen to stay on for extended periods, like when I’m sitting at my work desk with the rest of my monitors on. I tried to turn the screen back on, but it wouldn’t turn on anymore.

I did everything I could think of – disconnecting the charging cable, force-rebooting the phone… but nothing worked. I could tell the phone itself was working, and I was even able to call myself from my desk phone at work and it would ring, and I kept guessing at where the slider actually was a few times and was able to answer the phone and talk, so I knew everything seemed to be functioning ok except the display itself. I don’t know if it just burned out or what.

I even tried all of the tricks that worked for others on the internet who have had this issue before, and none of those things worked either. I am on-call for the hospital this week, so I knew I needed a working phone by the time my on-call shift started in the afternoon, so I took a few hours off of work and headed home to get my old phone, then to the Verizon store to see if what they could do.

A Verizon clerk looked at my phone, then checked my account and said that I don’t have insurance on the phone, so the only option I have is to pay off the balance on the broken phone (I’ve had it about a year, with 12 months of payments left on it), then they could sell me a new phone. Or he recommended another option that would probably be much cheaper: Go to Ubreakifix, a repair shop right behind the Verizon store I was at.

Verizon’s (and pretty much every other carrier, I believe) “insurance” policy costs about $33/month to cover all of the cell phones on your plan. It sounds cheap, but it adds up, and there’s also one other big catch: There’s a deductable, just like most other insurance plans – so if ANYTHING happens to your phone, you have to pay that deductable first, then your insurance covers all other costs beyond that amount. Currently that deductable, for us, would be $250-$300 (it varies based on the cost of your phone). I decided years ago to stop paying for this insurance and keep the money as well as our old phones (one generation back) which can then be used as a backup phone, should any of them break and need repair or replacement. This has worked out great, as we’re pretty careful with our smartphones now, so we rarely need to fall back to this.

The balance left to pay off my current phone was over $700. I considered my options, very briefly, then went to Ubreakifix. I’ve never heard of this place, but if it’s a cheaper option, I might give it a try. As it turned out, I’ve never had such a pleasant experience as I did at this place. The clerk/tech took my phone as I explained my issue, looked it over and confirmed there was an issue. Then he checked the warranty and found it was still under warranty. Why didn’t Verizon say that?? Verizon wouldn’t do anything without me having their insurance plan. The tech said they can take it in and repair it or ship it out for repair under warranty, he’d have to check and see, but said it shouldn’t cost me anything unless they find water damage or other damage after opening it up. But, he said, it looks really clean and he doesn’t see any issues with it other than the screen being completely dead, so that shouldn’t be an issue. He said they’ll take it and figure out what needs to be done, then call me by the end of the day and let me know approximately when I’ll get it back.

I had him switch my number to my old phone temporarily, which turned out to be as simple as moving the SIM card from my broken phone to my old phone. As long as they were both Verizon, it shouldn’t be an issue, he said, and there wasn’t. I could swear it used to be much more complicated that just a SIM card swap.

Anyway, that was that. I went home and started configuring my old phone with the apps I currently use. I had wiped the old phone shortly after I got my new one close to a year ago, so I had to start from scratch. But it was easy enough to get the basic essentials up and running quickly and I was in business.

A few hours later I got a text from Ubreakifix stating my phone repair is complete and I can come and pick it up. Holy crap! I drove back to the store and picked it up. Sure enough, no charge at all, it was all covered under the manufacturer’s warranty. They replaced the screen and it’s working great again. That kind of experience just doesn’t happen often enough these days, so hats off to Ubreakifix! Below is what it would have costed, had it not been covered under the manufacturer’s warranty. Add that to the $20 I found on my lunch walk the other day and I’m doing pretty good.

It’s been awhile. I’ve been pretty busy lately, mostly just walking my ass off, literally. I have lost 45 lbs since the first of the year, which feels great. It’s been really difficult and consumes a lot of my free time I’d really rather spend doing other things I like, but I consider it an investment. If I can get all the way down to a weight that is considered “non-obese” it could potentially add years to my life. Every pound I lose hopefully gives me some more time, and I’d like to live longer than what the statistics predict.

According to the experts, diabetics with Type 2, which is me, have a life expectancy of 77 years. Strangely enough, my father was also diabetic and he lived to – you guessed it – 77. My grandfather George Trottier died at 76. I want to at least pass them all up and clear 80. This is a good start. Of course, the closer and closer I get, I could start to feel differently. For now, just feeling so much better, and having the ability to do so much more, is pretty good incentive in itself.

I work in a hospital, so I was one of the first to be offered the CODIV-19 vaccine awhile back, and I got it as soon as I could. The possibility of a strange reaction to it or other side-effect, or the possibility of something bizarre like the weird things that some people are actually claiming are contained in the vaccine are just so minimal that, for me at least, it was a no-brainer. Why would you pass up a chance to possibly prevent your death or a serious illness? Especially if it’s completely free? The government is willing to pay for it. And now, since we can’t reach the “her immunity” numbers because so many people haven’t gotten the vaccine and it has mutated, the government is finally cracking down further and will soon make it a requirement for government employees. If you don’t get vaccinated, you will be subjected to frequent COVID-19 testing. That seems reasonable to me.

It should have been mandatory from the beginning. I know, easier said from someone who doesn’t oppose vaccines for religious reasons and doesn’t subscribe to the conspiracy and hoax theories and everything, but that’s just me. I want to live. Period.

But back to me. It’s all about me, isn’t it? Anyway, because all of this time spent walking, I need something to occupy me a lot of the time, so they don’t feel so long and boring. And since I’m also into music, movies and TV, I try to incorporate some of that into my walks whenever possible. Instead of counting each step from 1 to 10,000 during a walk, I’ll put in my earbuds and play a TV show episode, a movie, some music, or even just put on one of Howard Stern’s amazing celebrity interviews.

The latter usually ends up prompting me to pull out my phone while walking, bring up my notetaking app, and taking a few notes when the celebrity explains something interesting in a movie to TV show, or mentions good shows or movies or actors. I even sometimes dive through that rabbit hole while I’m walking, which can get pretty dicey, especially if there’s traffic and other people in the vicinity. Yeah, I’m “that guy”, distracted by his phone, buried in the screen and not paying attention. If I’m crossing a street or forced to walk in the street though, I’m heads-up, phone down. I’m not that bad. I want to live, after all. And if I am playing a TV show or movie, it’s just the audio I’m listening to, not the video. That’s just crazy right there. Watch video and walking I can’t do. I just don’t have the coordination for that. Maybe if Ready Player One-style glasses were real, and I could pull up a display in my peripheral vision while still looking and walking forward, it might be doable, but for now, no.

I was just about to detail my latest notes I’ve taken on new movies and shows I’ve noted, since I’m supposed to “write what I know”, but I’m on-call for the hospital this weekend and I just got paged. I’ll be back…

A Novel by Andy Weir

I just finished reading this book (Kindle & Audible versions combined). The impending end of the world, Astrophage, Rocky, Adrian, The Beatles (John, Paul, George and Ringo…even Pete Best!), Taumoeba, Russians, Vodka…..and even…spiders??

Audible’s synopsis: A lone astronaut must save the earth from disaster in this incredible new science-based thriller from the number-one New York Times best-selling author of The Martian. Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission – and if he fails, humanity and the Earth itself will perish. Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.

His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, he realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Alone on this tiny ship that’s been cobbled together by every government and space agency on the planet and hurled into the depths of space, it’s up to him to conquer an extinction-level threat to our species. And thanks to an unexpected ally, he just might have a chance.

Part scientific mystery, part dazzling interstellar journey, Project Hail Mary is a tale of discovery, speculation, and survival to rival The Martian – while taking us to places it never dreamed of going.

I thoroughly enjoyed the story, beginning to end, with the interesting way that the main character’s amnesia slowly returned, piece by piece, making it seem like I was learning what was going on at the same time the main character was learning the same. There was no feeling like the story was holding some key elements back for a major reveal, everything was just told in order, as that it came back to the main character’s memory, weaving nicely into what he was experiencing in space during his journey.

I don’t want to spoil any of the cool “extraterrestrial” experiences that occur in the story, but my first sentence in this post provides several tiny clues. It even made me laugh out loud several times, though I didn’t laugh because something seemed hokey or ridiculous. It was genuinely funny, and my kind of humor. The whole story really seemed plausible. Something that could actually happen, and lifeforms and characters that really could actually exist. Who knows. Andy Weir (I keep typing his last name as “Weird” and having to correct it) really seems to know his math and science! I’m curious just how accurate all of his theories and calculations in the book actually are–just like his book The Martian, if you’ve read that one. I’ll have to look around the interwebs a bit and check out the analyses of others who might be more knowledgeable about those science details and see what they think about the book.

Parts of this audiobook reminded me, several times, of how reading the audiobook version of a book can be enhanced a lot by other “little things” they add, such as sounds, impressions of characters, and music. All of these unmentioned “enhancements” were included in the Audible version I listened to, often while following along in the Kindle version, and made it just that more enjoyable of an experience. From what I read on the Audible website, the changes made to accommodate the audio version were approved by the author, Andy Weir. I also approve… they made the story more enjoyable and definitely increased my appreciation for, and the overall depth of the characters in the story. On the other side of the coin, however, the Kindle version is visual, so it also has the potential of having advantages of it’s own, and there are a few key things in the Kindle and print versions of the book that Audible-only readers may not even know about… Want a better idea of what that bizarre spaceship in the book actually might look like? Check the actual book!

As I usually find when I read a good book, I hated to have it end, forcing me back to reality once again. It didn’t disappoint at all, in any places. I really enjoyed this one and loved every minute of it. I can’t wait for it to be made into a movie. Christopher Nolan has to direct it. No one else would do it justice. If it can’t be a movie, I’d settle for a “limited miniseries” on TV. Speaking of that, if I did have one complaint about the book, it would be the seemingly tamed-down language of the main character. There are several moments on the story when he says things like “DARN it!” and ‘Oh. Shucks.”, and “gosh-darned” instead of much harsher words that would seem much more appropriate to the situations the character was in at the time, and this kind of bugged me a little, bringing me slightly out of the story a bit, wondering, each time. It seemed like it might have been purposely written for “teens” or a definitely young audience. Then again, the character was a grade school teacher in the book, so maybe he was just accustomed to cursing tamely because of the kids. I don’t know, but it just didn’t sit right with me. Aside from that tiny issue though, I highly recommend this book… it visual AND audible formats!

Oh, and I just found this article. Looks like it IS going to be made into a movie! I’ll be waiting for it!

https://movies.mxdwn.com/news/ryan-gosling-signs-on-to-andy-weir-astronaut-thriller-project-hail-mary/

Someone recently asked me to watch “The Social Dilemma”, a documentary on Netflix, and give my feedback, so I did.  Below is an “expanded version” of my feedback.  I added the last paragraph just before I posted this on my website:

The embedded story with actors about the teenager with the social media addiction was kind of funny.  Especially the “ad” for Kitchen Safe, and actual product that appeared on Shark Tank.  Pretty funny how to three little identical “algorythm guys” inside Facebook were deciding which ads or features to throw at him at any given time.

Unfortunately, it’s all probably a fairly accurate example.  Fake news, culture wars, election manipulation… I would probably even read the book “Weapons of Math Destruction” after watching this, except it’s not on Audible or Kindle, my preferred methods of reading books.  Maybe THAT’s a whole other conspiracy…LOL

There’s just too many vulnerable people in the world that social media can use and manipulate to make money. Just like all Trump supporters… They really believe everything he says (no offense if you’re one of them) but that’s just plain scary to me. If we end up with more of those than people who are smart enough to have an open mind and look at all sides of things in this country, it will eventually end up destroying our entire democracy.

Too many people are just TOO connected these days. In my opinion, everyone needs to take a break sometimes, back off, get out, experience reality, and find a balance.  Personally, I try to limit my exposure to social media. I only look at social media to see what family and friends are up to once or twice a day, and usually only post a status when I walk and it’s all automatic from the app I use to track my walks, so it doesn’t even take any extra effort.  It’s mostly just a one-way thing for me, just to let friends and family know I’m still alive and well, and still out there.  I considered deleting all of my social media accounts a few times, but that would mean losing touch with all of my friends and family, and I don’t really have a problem with using them on my terms.  I can’t really keep up with most of it, especially with also having a full-time job and a few hobbies. Sandy’s retired now, so she reads social media much more, and often keeps me up-to-date when something interesting comes up, or a friend or family member posts something that I might want to know about.   She also uses me to determine if something is a scam or “fake news” when she isn’t sure. Plus, I’m her “IT guy” for all of her tech issues. LOL

Oh, I liked the Steve Wozniak cameo, even though he didn’t talk, he was just in an audience and on his phone, but it was a fairly decent close-up, I couldn’t miss him.  I’m a huge fan of his, we’re about the same age and I learned all about him when he and Steve Jobs first formed Apple. His book was awesome too. I’ve read it several times.

And one more note, specifically about Facebook, as long as I’m commenting on social media… This is just my opinion, but Facebook makes it WAY too easy for a user to have multiple accounts, or “personalities”.  I recently helped a relative get back only her original Facebook account after she got a new cell phone.  She had already created a totally new Facebook account and had sent Sandy a friend request.  I told Sandy it’s most likely a fake account, just delete it, then I got a text from this “fake” account insisting she was who she said she was, and she had to create a new Facebook account, since she couldn’t get into her old account on the new phone she got.  I offered to help her get the old account working if she hadn’t deleted it yet.  She hadn’t, and I was able to easily assist her, in-person, and get her back to her old account.  I also helped her completely delete the NEW Facebook account she had created, but before deleting it, I toyed a little with both accounts in her Facebook app.  Wow, I never realized you can have have two, or probably many more, Facebook accounts and just instantly flip between each of them to be whatever or whoever you want to be any any given time!  Someone could (and I’m sure many people do) create trolling accounts, accounts for illegal and illicit activities, etc., and still maintain an “normal” completely separate Facebook account.  Multiple personalities, anyone?  It’s scary to think about.  Why would they allow this?  Maybe some people have “Work” and “Personal” accounts?  I never considered having multiple Facebook accounts myself, I have a hard enough time just trying to keep track of everyone on ONE account.  Just thought that was an interesting feature, and another one I’m not too fond of.

Seriously. I did. It doesn’t happen often, but today it did. It became an obsession and I worked through it and finally got it done and over with today. It’s a long story, but what the hell, it’s my website, and that’s what this is for, so here goes. Over a year ago, we replaced most of our furniture in our house with new, awesome, furniture we found at Bob’s Discount Furniture. We became huge fans of them as a result, finding their prices excellent for the quality and features you can get in furniture. After our initial purchase of a dual power-reclining loveseat for the basement and Kevin’s own big comfy couch with dual power recliners, we went ahead with a lot more replacements from Bob’s, including our entire master bedroom set and a dual power-reclining sofa for our living room and a separate recliner for The Warden. We made sure, at the time, that the sofa, recliner, and love-seat would be able to accommodate our “larger” sizes–we even chose specific models that had weight limits of 350-400 lb. and were heavy-duty. I was hovering around 300 lb at that time, and I am the heaviest in the family, so we were assured our size wouldn’t be an issue with the furniture we chose.

About three to four months after we purchased the living room sofa, we had an issue: The right-side recliner starting sticking, both when I raised it and when I lowered it. Something was catching on the mechanism, causing it to stop and get stuck, usually popping free, if we kept running the motor to recline or lower the recliner, but it sounded and felt horrible. Something was really wrong with it. This happens to be my dedicated living room “seat”, as this recliner is pretty much in the exact spot in the living room where my old recliner had been since we moved in. So we called Bob’s Discount Furniture. This issue started happening just when pandemic was getting its worst, and Bob’s Discount Furniture said they had stopped doing their service calls temporarily and asked us to call back after things get better and they’ll be glad to help us. We had purchased their 5-year Goof-Proof insurance protection on pretty much everything we purchased from them, so we felt good that waiting a few months wouldn’t be an issue.

So fast-forward to very recently. We still had the issue with the sofa, and several times a day I was painfully reminded of it every time my recliner would stick. I had found that I could do this weird jostle of my legs, pulling them to the right just as I was reclining or putting my feet back down to get up, at just the right time, I could avoid it getting stuck. This worked some of the time, but not every time, and half the time I couldn’t remember to do it when sitting down or getting up. After awhile of doing this I started to worry that maybe forcing the seat sideways like that might actually damage the mechanism even more in some other way than it already was. Anyway, so recently, with the pandemic starting to fade and many people now having gotten one of the vaccines available, we called Bob’s again, asking if they might have resumed their service calls, and we were told they have. So we setup a service appointment.

The “technician” arrived promptly on the date and time scheduled, and looked at the sofa. He could see where it was catching underneath when I demonstrated the issue–A reclining lever was getting stuck on the bottom steel bar located on the floor that serves as the base of the sofa. After seeing the issue and looking at it for a few minutes, he took a bunch of notes on the tablet he brought with him, then gave me a number for Bob’s and asked me to dial the number, confirm with the person who answered that I’m the customer, then he said she (the lady on the phone) will take it from here and explain our options to us. Then he walked out. We assumed he was looking at parts on his tablet before, maybe, and trying to figure out how to get it fixed, and maybe he was going out to his vehicle to see if he had what he needed for the repair. As it turned out, that was not the case at all.

The lady on the phone explained that it has been well over a year since we purchased the sofa, the damage was caused by the customer, and there is only a 1-year warranty on the sofa, so there is nothing they can do to help us further. I explained that we initially called well within the 1-year period when the issue started, but no one could come out due to the pandemic. She said she understood that, and even confirmed that they do have a note on the case of exactly when we initially called, but because it’s now past that one year, there’s nothing further they can do to help us. We then explained that we purchased the 5-year Goof Proof protection on the sofa, and she said that’s separate from Bob’s and we would have to file a claim with that company for the damage and they should be able to take care of us. She then provided me with the phone number to file a claim with that firm, so I hung up. Sandy and I both figured it was a good thing we bought the 5-year insurance plan, because that’s all we got now. Little did we know.

I called the number and got the details on how to file a claim for our repair. We had to go to a specific website and fill out a form, providing all the details of what happened to cause the damage (uh…sitting on the sofa…?) as well as the exact part numbers of the items damaged, including photos of the damage and the exact date the damage took place. After a couple hours I had everything filled out and the photos uploaded and I submitted the claim. After a few business days, the result came back: DENIED. ALL DAMAGE CLAIMS MUST BE REPORTED WITHIN 30 DAYS FROM WHEN THE DAMAGE OCCURED. Since the claim was filed over a YEAR after the damage occurred, it was clearly not something they could repair. It is clearly spelled out in their fine print. So at that point we were SOL with nowhere to turn. I tried to explain the whole story to the Goof Proof people, but nothing could be done. We were left with a bad sofa.

Fast-forward once more, just a little bit, to this weekend. Friday evening I crawled under the sofa again and looked hard at the issue. I knew exactly where the mechanism was jamming, and it only occurs when Sandy or I are sitting in my spot on the sofa. When we sit down, it drops a bit–just enough to lower the footrest bar a little to catch on the base bar causing a jam. In fact, that spot is clearly marked on the base bar by a large gouge left from it jamming repeatedly for over a year. I realized that there’s nothing we can do to keep the sofa from sagging when we sit in it–well, at least nothing we can do that won’t take a year or more–I’m actively working on my weight loss right now, sure, but not for this silly reason–but it looked like a chunk of that steel bar could be removed without effecting the stability of the couch frame at all. The steel bar is actually L-shaped and pretty thick. If a small section of just the vertical portion of the “L” was removed in just the right place, it would allow the footrest mechanism to clear the bar freely and the issue would be gone.

I slept on it last night, and this morning I thought about what could be used to cut out that chunk of steel. We have a lot of tools left from Sandy’s dad, but unfortunately no power saws. Just a standard metal hacksaw with a dull blade on it. Menards is only a few blocks from our house, so I checked their website and settled on a $99 Dremel saw that looked it it would do the trick. It looked small enough (the space under the sofa is pretty tight) and came with several blade types, including 3 that can cut through metal. I drove to Menards and picked one up.

When I got home I unboxed it, assembled the parts and plugged it in near the sofa. I sprayed a mist of water under the sofa first, and donned my goggles, knowing how metal-cutting throws a lot of sparks. I quickly learned this was not going to work. Even the small size of the Dremel saw was too big for the small space available under the sofa, and the circular blade was on the left side of the saw, so I couldn’t get anywhere near the proper spot where I needed to cut the bar–I could only get within about three inches of it. It was pretty close to the edge of the main sofa frame. I needed something much smaller.

I boxed the Dremel saw back up and took it back to Menards for a refund. Menards is always excellent with returns, so they had no problem crediting my debit card for the purchase. At least THIS didn’t become part of the whole issue. So I went back to the saw section at Menards and looked for something that would work, now considering the small confined space it would need to fit in. I ruled out all of the power saws they had. None of them would be able to fit into the space. So I looked at a dozen or more different hacksaws–some like Sandy’s dad already had, a few others with odd shapes and smaller sizes, but those wouldn’t work either. There were only two items that I found that could possibly fit, and they were pretty “old school”. Not my favorite choice in today’s day and age, but I couldn’t find anything else that would work, and just wanted this thing fixed once and for all. I settled on one device that looked much like a rubber screwdriver handle, but which held a hacksaw blade. It could definitely fit in the space I needed it to, and included two metal-cutting hacksaw blades. It accepts any standard hacksaw blade, so I figured this would do the trick, it’ll just require a lot of manual sawing on my part to get it done. I paid the $4.89 price at the Menards checkout, thinking “If this works, holy shit, it costed us a whole $5.00 to fix a big issue we’ve had with our sofa for over a year!”

I brought the mini hacksaw tool home and crawled under the sofa to get to work. As expected, it took some real elbow grease and a lot of time, but I was able to get a cut started and got partially through that steel bar before the blade became too dull and I realized I was no longer making progress. Good thing I had a couple spare blades. I changed it out and started making progress again. A little progress. Then on to the next blade. With the last blade, I made a second cut at an angle opposite the first cut, so they came together just close enough so I could use a pair of pliers to pull the chunk of steel in the middle back and forth until it broke off. I had the gap!

I had Sandy sit on the sofa and recline, and it still got stuck. Damn. I was off by about 1/2″ to the right. I needed to make another cut, but I was out of blades. Back to Menards. I found a a few 2- and 3-packs of metal-cutting hacksaw blades, but since this was my third trip to Menards today, I didn’t want to have to come back again, so I grabbed a few extra packs. Then I noticed a much-cheaper-in-total 10-pack of metal-cutting hacksaw blades for $8.99, so I figured that should definitely do the trick. This looked promising.

I came home and began sawing anew. I spent a good portion of the day under that sofa. I got it done though–3 steel metal chunks later. Both Sandy and I can now recline on the sofa with no issues at all. $15 very well spent!

We won’t be going back to Bob’s Discount Furniture anymore, and we sure don’t recommend their “Goof Proof” protection either. In fact, check this out:

https://www.graesen.com/blog/not-my-bobs-why-bobs-discount-furniture-and-their-goof-proof-protection-is-a-scam

It’s a totally different situation, but I sure wish I had ready that back in 2020 when it was first published. I’m sure we probably could have fought this with Bob’s or the insurance company for Goof Proof, and who knows, we might have even come out of it with a properly repaired of even a brand new sofa, but at this late stage in the game we just wanted to avoid having to make another pricey furniture purchase this soon.

By the way, the love-seat we purchased for our basement rec-room is an identical matching love-seat with all of the exact same features and functions and color as the living room sofa with the issue, it’s just slightly less wide than the sofa–and we’ve never had any issues at all with anything on the love seat–especially with my seat of choice, which is also on the right side, same as the sofa–at the perfect angle to the television, ala Sheldon Cooper.

Who cares? Me, actually. I treat the Oscar day much like many others treat Superbowl day. Sandy makes snacks that we’ll eat throughout the red carpet and the Oscars, no main supper that day, and we (I) just watch TV for about 5 or 6 hours through it all.

This year’s a bit different with the pandemic. I thought maybe I would have seen several more of the nominated movies this time, since we’ve been locked in for a year and we definitely watched more movies and TV shows overall that we have in previous years, but as it turns out, it doesn’t look much different. Again, I find that most of the nominated pictures I haven’t seen, and several are surprises. I’m going to try to watch at least two of the nominated movies today though. See all of the nominees at the bottom of this post. I always print a few copies of this ballot and refer to it a lot throughout the Oscars.

Best Picture: We watched The Father already, and that was really good, it could win easily. We also watched Nomadland, another really good movie. The rest of the 8 Best Picture Nominees we haven’t seen, so I’m planning to knock out The Trial of the Chicago 7 and either Judas, Minari, Promising Young Woman, or Sound of Metal as my second watch, I’m not sure just yet.

As is the case each year, there are many surprises on this list that I wasn’t even aware of, so I’m busy this morning scrounging to dig up what I can from the interwebs to be as informed as possible. I might even be able to squeeze in a few nominated shorts before tomorrow evening, we’ll see.

I cut the grass for the first time this year yesterday. That felt good. I was a bit cool and breezy, but dry, so it worked out nicely. I had to clean a lot of big rocks out of the grass along the curb area, which is normal for the first cut of the season. Throughout the winter the snow plows throw all of the street debris onto the grass along with the snow and ice, and everything from nearby potholes and crumbling curbs ends up in the grass. Having a corner lot makes it even worse, as there is so much more near-curb lawn to manage.

I’m not really happy with the results of the city’s sod work done on our lawn last fall either. They had to replace several sections and corners of our front lawn with sod after repairing several sections of sidewalk that needed replacing, and the corner section which was replaced with a handicapped-accessible ramp instead of a regular curb. The sections that were sodded are still very “spongy” and soft, sinking in in several places, and too high in others, so it’s very difficult to mow. Maybe I’m not supposed to mow those areas at all for the first year or two, they weren’t very clear on the limitations, but I’ve been trying, and it hasn’t gone very very. As a result, several areas are now marred with chunks of missing grass, usually at the corners of a replaced section, when the lawn mower has dug in too deep or my edge trimmer has whacked them too hard. Because this is probably my fault, mostly, I’m not complaining. I’ll just keep watering and hope for the best. Our neighbors’ grass across the street, who had the same work done at the same time, however, looks nearly perfect. They probably don’t fuss with their lawn as much as I do though.

My CGM, diet control, and weight loss continue to improve each day. I’m starting to see real improvement now, so it’s already paying off with better health. I’m consuming some new things that seem kinda weird, but hey, if it works, I’ll give it a shot! So far, so good. The puppies are also very well. They just had their 2-year checkup and they’re doing great. No real issues, just a recommendation to brush their teeth once daily. Yeah, like they’ll love that… We’re giving them more teeth-cleaning rawhide sticks to try to help, so hopefully that’ll be enough. Their teeth look really nice to us, just a couple teeth in each mouth that have a small amount of discoloration near the gum line, but everything else looks really great. I don’t think it’s much of an issue. I’ve had dogs with much worse teeth, including Socks, who lost many teeth in his later years. But Shadow and Tiger are, by far, the best-fed, healthiest dogs we’ve had to date, and we’re very happy and proud of them.

Kevin, Sandy and I watched “Nobody” this week and we all thoroughly enjoyed it. Kevin said it seemed like a cross between John Wick and something else, though I forget exactly what it was he crossed it with. It stars “Saul” from Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, Bob Odenkerk. It was pretty non-stop and had some really interesting surprises. I especially enjoyed seeing “Doc Brown” again, Christopher Lloyd, who plays the main character’s father. I don’t want to spoil any of the story, that’s what the Internet is for. Here’s the trailer:

I watched last Star Wars trilogy just as I had scheduled during my 7th, 8th, and 9th day off last week. Those were awesome, as expected, and it was a fun 9-day trip I really enjoyed during my week off. I was back to work this week, and resumed my regular work schedule.

My Dexcom G6 situation is still constantly evolving. It’s a fairly complex system, consisting of a sensor (each lasts 10 days) and a transmitter (each lasts 90 days). A receiver is also an optional component, since you can use your own smartphone as the receiver, but they apparently ship it to you anyway as part of the prescription–but with a $120 co-pay–so I reached out to them and arranged for a return, explaining that I don’t need the receiver, and I got my $120 back. And with sensors only lasting 10 days each, my first 3-pack of sensors (which also had a $120 co-pay) were recently used up, and my doctor didn’t have refills on my prescription, so I had that issue to work around. But that worked out nicely, since I just found out that I could order a 90-day supply (9 sensors) for the same $120 co-pay as I did for the 3-day supply. To me, that’s like getting 60 days (or 6 sensors) free! That’s quite a relief. The only catch is that I have to wait a few days with no constant readings before the shipment of sensors arrives. Back to finger pricks. Ouch.

And speaking of the Dexcom situation, my diet has been evolving quite a bit as a result. We are now constantly watching the fluctuations in my numbers, when they occur, and exactly what I’ve eaten to cause each of the changes, then Sandy makes adjustments and we try other things. As a result, my blood sugar numbers are much better these days, my weight it dropping, and I’m feeling much better overall. In fact, our Director bought pizza for our department Friday and I didn’t touch it. They really put me to the test too, by having all of the pizzas lined up on our hallway table as they ate them. I have to walk past this table several times a day to get from my office to the restroom, so it was quite a test of my self-restraint…but I passed it! I also started taking Apple Cider Vinegar and drinking Red Wine recently. Both of these have been found to lower blood sugar and provide several other benefits for diabetics, and Sandy and I have also confirmed these effects ourselves, so I’m sticking with them. Some red wine during certain evening meals makes quite a difference for me, and the benefits of Apple Cider Vinegar in my diet continue to slowly evolve, and we just found a Apple Cider Vinegar pill that I just added to my daily meds, which is also helping.

In entertainment news, this week I watched Chaos Walking. I enjoyed it, and I’m waiting to see if it ends up being a trilogy of movies. It’s from a series of books, so it wouldn’t surprise me. It stars the “SpiderMan” kid, Tom Holland, and the “Star Wars” kid, Daisy Ridley. Just that combination alone sparked my interest in the movie. It’s about “New World”, a new planet that humans are trying to start populating in the future after we have totally depleted our World’s resources to a point where there was no turning back. New world looks awesome, but has some disturbing side-effects. The two biggest ones being that all male humans’ thoughts are automatically visual and audible to everyone else, and the planet’s native beings are violent killers. I thought the movie was very well-done, and I heard it combined a lot of elements from the entire series of books, which is another reason I’m wondering if it’ll continue for two more movies. I guess, like everything else, it all depends on how popular the movie is and how much money it makes. Good stuff though. A link to the trailer is at the bottom of this post.

In other entertainment, I’ve been playing more in VR this week as well as getting re-familiarized with a few past games I still really enjoy a lot – These include Burnout Paradise Remastered, The Crew 2, WreckFest, and GTA V. There’s a pattern there, I know…I love that type of game. Then there’s Reaxxion – based on the classic breakout-style games of the past, but with a modern twist. The VR games are very vast at the moment, I don’t really have a focus on anything specific there, just playing everything I can all over the place and looking for those “true gems” I love and want to just keep playing. Everyone’s recommending Half-Life Alyx though, so I plan to dig into that one soon. SteamVR Home isn’t really a game, but that one’s my most frequently played at the moment. It’s basically just an interactive social VR ” home environment” where you hang out with your friends and meetup to go play other VR games. But it’s so customizable, and they offer 5 free hidden “giveaway” items each week that I don’t want to ever miss out on a week. It’s addictive to me. And I’m also constantly switching between my Valve Index and the Quest 2, still unable to favor one over the other… they both have their own unique advantages and disadvantages in many different areas and both are constantly evolving. It’s just really fun to be included in the ride.

I just finished watching Episode 6. It was a nice wrap-up of the two trilogies. Lucas adding Anakin as a young man to the hologram “spirits” that Luke looks at, smiling, at the very end of the movie was a nice touch, which better connects the trilogy most-recently done with the very old “middle” trilogy. Comparing them side-by-side, the new version wouldn’t make much sense if you hadn’t seen Episodes I-III before watching the original three movies. You’d be wondering who the heck that young kid is…

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Anyway, I’m on the last three movies starting tomorrow. Kevin is complaining that the last two movies in the 9-movie series aren’t canon, so he refuses to accept them. I laughed when he said that. And I thought I was a geek about this stuff… LOL

I watched Star Wars Episode V today, continuing my 9-day movie marathon. It contained much that I had forgotten – I only remembered it as being “that ice-planet Star Wars movie”, but I had forgotten about Luke’s training with Yoda on Dagobah, Han getting frozen in carbonite and Luke losing his hand to Darth Vader (his father…shhhhh). Tomorrow it’s Return of the Jedi.

Tonight, however, we pause for a main event monster brawl – an all-out knock-down drag-out between the two heavyweight champions of the monster movie franchises – Godzilla vs Kong. Yeah, sounds pretty hokey. We’ll see though, I’m keeping an open mind. If the story and CGI are up to par, this could be something special. We’re getting the popcorn and drinks ready.

I watched “A New Hope”, Star Wars Episode IV yesterday, as scheduled. Good stuff, much as I remembered it. This was the one I remembered the best, having been addicted to it since I watched it obsessively with Linda and Melissa, my nieces, as I babysat for them many years ago. Their father, Bob Brackney, had it on VHS and later on one of those huge laser discs the size of an LP – maybe even a little larger.

Last night Sandy and I also watched Senior Moment, a new release starring William Shatner. It’s from “Chicken Soup for the Soul” pictures, so I figured it would be pretty mild and uplifting. It was OK, but nothing really exceptional. Shatner’s acting skills are clearly not top-notch, but I knew that going in. The story was light and decent and had it’s moments. I just wish the Professor from Back to the Future had a bigger role. He was a friend of Shatner’s character in the movie, but just wasn’t seen enough and his character wasn’t fleshed out very much at all, leaving me wondering. All in all, I think I’d give it 3 out of 5 stars. It’s worth watching, even if just to escape for 90 minutes.

Tonight Kevin and I are going to watch Godzilla vs Kong, which just came out today. Can’t wait!