I had to set the alarm to get me up today for my doctor's appointment at 11:00... I got up at 09:00, but I didn't get to bed until about 01:45 and it was probably 03:00 before I got to sleep. I have been sleeping very well lately, I think that stopping smoking has paid off in that way, anyway. I hardly ever have problems going to sleep or staying asleep once I get there, and on my rare bathroom breaks in the middle of the night, I have no problems getting back to sleep. Part of my problem last night was my enthusiasm over JD's Web Site. I kept thinking of more and more ways to make it better... Anyhoo, I went to see the doc. First things first, I weighed in at -5 pounds from what I was last week. Of course, part of that is the mild diuretic that he put me on, but I have been trying to reduce my portions, and it seems to be working. Secondly, my BP was down in the "normal" range, 125/80. It hasn't been that low in years... years and years. I took it just now and it was 108/62. Earlier, before I went to the doc's and shortly after I'd taken my meds, it was 210/110. Obviously the medication is the key here, but eventually, like within three months or so, I'll have my weight down enough that I will be able to cut way down on the meds. Thirdly, it is a beautiful day! Just like yesterday, nice and cool and sunny, a little breezy but definitely short-sleeve weather. I haven't mentioned SETI lately... team Nilky has moved into 9th place, with 4019 units, 10+ years of processing time, and has done more work than 99.484% of the users. Our rank out of 3,721,021 total users is: 19,195th place. To sign up, go Here, and to get on the nilky team, use nilknarf@nilknarf.net as your email address and drop me a line and let me know. Seti works best if your machine is on all of the time, and uses only unused cycles... in other words, it will not slow you down in any way. Give me a yell if you have any problems setting it up! JD and I were talking about religion last night, and preachers in particular... he has a coupla friends whose father is a preacher, and JD likes this guy a lot. Well, I'm sorry, but I have a lot of contempt for preachers/priests/shamen. For one thing, I don't believe that most of them actually are believers, I think that they just don't want to actually *work* for a living, so they will convince other people, the ones who *do* believe their bullshit, to give them money. And, of course, I have contempt for the ones who *do* believe, those who bow their heads and grovel before the invisible, unprovable sky god. Yeah, in my book, preachers of any ilk are losers. I am usually a bit more generous with their *flocks*, however. That ol' 'merican sympathy for the underdog, I guess. 16:09... JD also finished mowing the back yard, the high part. Now that it's down mostly to a reasonable height, it'll be easier to keep up with it. JD's in taking a shower right now, he and a coupla friends are going to KC to spend the evening, I'm sure that he'll have a full account in his entry for today.... Tonight I have to get to bed much earlier, since I have to be at the hospital at 07:00 in the morning for my pre-op stuff. Lotsa paperwork... no fun at all. 19:10... JD brought down a coupla old laptop computers from Annette that she didn't want, and one of them is an Apple Powerbook. An older one, probably 5 years old or so, 117 MH with 28MB and a HD of almost a gig. It's really pretty neat... first apple that I've ever been exposed to. I need to get a network card so I can put it in my stable and run SETI on it. The other one is a PC notebook, but I don't have the power cord for it, Annette will be sending it up and I'll see what can be done with it. It's a brand that I've never heard of and I have no idea what's on it or in it at this point. JD also brought along an old (really OLD!) PC that someone threw away at his apartment. We stripped it of useful parts (it did have an almost new power supply!) and he's going to burn it and use it for an art project some day. Before JD's friend Ryan went to the left coast, he bought an old turntable from me, and I gave him a bunch of albums after extracting a promise that he'd tape the albums for me. Well, that was about six years ago, and he's got most of them done now... burned on CDs instead of tapes, natch. He says that he'll get them to me before the end of the summer... but he didn't specify which summer. We've got some really nice comments about JDs web site, thanx y'all!
JD and I just finished doing some auto work... we (I use "We" in the broadest sense) put plugs and a fuel filter in his truck, and we took the new tires off of the Subaru and got them on my Toyota... after about a year of talking about it, it's finally done, and we can get that piece of sh*t hauled away.
JD just left, he and I and Ryan and Ryan's dad have been standing out front BS-ing for an hours or so... the father is the preacher that I was talking about earlier. Seemed like a nice guy.