блестящий

Водитель автобуса Джим блестящий и недооцененный компьютерный программист. Вы должны действительно проверить его работу.

Published
Categorized as Various

Resolve 2017

I have but one resolution this year: to hit my $10 treadmill daily. That’s it, simple and doable. Right now I get in 35 minute high-intensity walks at 3.5 mph every other day. I do my workout with weights every third day which allows my muscles to regenerate and grow, so I’m good there, and my diet is approved by god, so good there also.

I read yesterday that probiotic yogurt was great for the brain in your gut and I’ve been taking that with my protein powder now for half a year. Like I said, my diet comes from above and I don’t make conscious decisions about it, I just listen and follow instructions. I realized the other day that the chocolate I eat regularly is a substitute for alcohol, and I have no complaints about that.

So I hope this year you receive your instructions clearly, and follow them intently.

Published
Categorized as Various

Delivery

Ok, this is cool. I’ve been signed up with UPS My Choice shipment notification services for a few years now and today they introduced something new. Now you can see your packages arriving in real-time on a Bing map. I’m expecting my new Fire HD 8 this afternoon and I can see that it’s currently sitting on a truck in Tetonia.

Speaking of Amazon, how come you can transfer funds into a Gift Card account (which I use for incidental purchases) in five minutes, while it takes two to three business days with PayPal. Just saying…

Published
Categorized as Various

GeoJson Bounds

Something weird has popped up behind the Driggs Community Center. I was sitting nearby using the free wifi to listen to Rush Limbaugh on TuneIn Radio (because the bus radio is broken) when I spotted this thing. It has ritualistic overtones and is either the work of bored teenagers or cosmically connected granola heads.

Speaking of the latter, I was driving my Victor kids to Driggs this afternoon and one of the older kids was asking the younger ones why were you born? The answers were pretty inane until one little kid answered I was told to come back.

Ok, it’s all starting to make sense now, except for the title of this post, which only has meaning to the geek heads I’ve been conversing with lately in the Microsoft Bing Maps Web Control Forum…

Published
Categorized as Various

Seattle Storm

I think there was a race horse by this name but today it’s West Coast reality. I just got off the phone with Riley and he told me about this thing heading their way, so I checked it out. It looks bad and Steph’s flying out in the morning so I better call her real quick and make sure I’ve got her banks pin number. You know, just in case Piper needs cat food or something…

Published
Categorized as Various

Urbanathalon

I was hunting down a gun shop in Rexburg yesterday when we drove by this flag display in Porter Park. It turns out that the Madison County Fire Department was hosting its first annual Hero’s Challenge Urbanathalon, a 5k with obstacles, symbolizing what 9/11 firemen endured while racing to the Twin Towers. The event ends at the park where Patriots Day is also being celebrated.

You may wonder why it was held yesterday and not today. If you do then you certainly aren’t from around this neck of the woods :-) This is Rexburg Idaho, the most Mormon city on the planet north of Salt Lake. This town shuts down tight on Sunday and most everyone hangs out at one of the many wards whose towers dot the city. They even tried to get the new Walmart to close, to no avail, so if you like quiet shopping, there you go!

Published
Categorized as Various

Market Street

Here’s some video of a trip down San Francisco’s Market Street in 1906, four days before it was destroyed by the big quake.

If you’re up for more video, I highly recommend this:

Published
Categorized as Various

Labor Day

As you read this, an estimated 21 million people are being trafficked around the planet. More than half are women and girls. More than 1 million are children. Nearly one-quarter are bought and sold as sex slaves. Only 1 in 100 victims of human trafficking are ever rescued. It’s a booming business. High profits and low risk make human trafficking one of the fastest-growing and most lucrative crimes on the planet. The U.N. recently estimated that trafficking nets $150 billion a year. (Popular Science – DARPA)

Happy Labor Day…

Published
Categorized as Various

Hunt Spa

Went over to the Huntsman Springs Spa today with my family neighbors and enjoyed some relaxing down time. It’s hard being off for the summer: way too much exercise, too little food, and no booze. The summer break is coming to an end next week as I’m back to work, but I’ll still be maintaining the new healthy routine. Should be interesting…

Yes, twin hot tubs, one for adults and one for kids. Brilliant!

Published
Categorized as Various

I Walk

Twenty years ago I gave myself a major gift when I turned fifty, I quit smoking. To pull it off I got rid of my car and started walking five miles to work every morning at 2am. Walking gives you the chance to solidify your intent as each step brings a bullet of fresh healing air into your body. Anyway, it worked, and here I am with lungs as pure as the driven snow off the Grand Teton.

A week ago Friday I woke up with an inspiration, it was time to give myself the next big gift as I turn seventy, quit drinking. It’s my last vice and it’s not my friend. The benefits to my overall health and quality of life would be immense and it’s the best thing I could give myself.

So, I started walking. For the last week I’ve been hunkered down, flushing my liver out with our well water, and walking up and down our road. This is day eight and I feel terrific! I’m meeting up with the boys (Brian and Dave) today and we’re heading to Green Canyon Hot Springs for a soak.

When I wake up on my birthday tomorrow I will have no vices. I take no medicine, consume no drugs, the only thing that enters my lungs is fresh mountain air, I eat healthy food, I take cayenne pepper, and I walk…

Published
Categorized as Various

Alive And Free

I’m sitting here at my desk this Sunday morning watching Don Henley singing old favorites on Austin City Limits and tears of gratitude that I’m still alive and free are streaming down my cheeks and splashing into my cereal bowl. I’ve lost many friends and lovers along the path that arrived me to this point and I don’t really know how I survived, but here I am, and I’m grateful. Next week I travel…

Published
Categorized as Various

Mr. Ali

Muhammad Ali died today and I’m one of the humans on this planet that was fortunate enough to come in contact with his greatness. I was working my way through school at Merritt College in Oakland, CA back in the early seventies by running the Audio/Video department. Ali had just lost a major fight and he was making an appearance at Merritt, which was a black school at the time.

My job was to record his speech, which really became a performance as the afternoon evolved. When he made his way to the stage, he stepped on my foot, from my position hunkered down behind the stage with my recording equipment. I remember making eye-contact with him and he had this look like do you want to make an issue of this?

Hmmm, no…

As he exited after his performance he walked by me again and I reached up and grabbed his forearm, and he stopped. I told him that I had just recorded him on tape for the Merritt College archives and asked him to sign the tape. He did…

The primary memory from that encounter is that his arm felt like a solid piece of steel. I had touched greatness in my own small way.

And the past is just a story we tell ourselves…

Published
Categorized as Various

Medical Bullshit

Twenty years ago a doctor in Kent, WA. stuck an x-ray of my chest up on a light box in his office for me to see. He said that I had a few cigarette butts in there but if I quit I might live long enough to see my son grow up and see my great-grandchildren. I proceeded to quit as I walked out of his office, and his prediction came true.

The physical act of a doctor sitting down with you and showing you the actual images that he sees when x-rays or CT scans are performed, just isn’t happening anymore, at least not at our local Teton Valley Hospital, and I’ve become pretty pissed off about it.

Last year about this time I went to the local clinic (part of the hospital) to get a physical therapy referral for chronic lower back pain. I had started taking Ibuprofen for it and as I look back on it, that’s what started this whole medical bullshit saga.

My strong position in life has been to not consume pills of any kind. My system is perfectly balanced and I’m insanely regular. Taking those damn pills caused me to start backing up, which put more pressure on my lower back. A couple of P/T sessions taught me some exercises to ward off the back pain but the pain was increasing so I went back to the clinic. X-rays were taken and all the doctor said was “Your back looks alright, except for one small thing” and then proceeded to prescribe some muscle relaxer pills. I was in too much pain to think about demanding to see those images, and to this day I still have not. The whole thing was starting to spiral out of control.

I had to drive an intercity Rexburg run that week and during breaks I would head over to the shade trees by the closed high school, lie on the floor of the bus and scream in agony as I tried to stretch my back out. Those muscle relaxers were crap and just backed me up further.

By the time Saturday rolled around my stomach was extremely swollen and I was afraid I had some sort of blockage, so Steph drove me to the E/R. They put me on a morphine drip, took blood and did a full workup, and performed a CT scan of my gut. The doctor told me my liver and kidneys were fine (no individual analysis of the blood results) and that he saw no major issues on the CT scan. He recommended a lemon flavoured liquid laxative, gave me a prescription for hydrocodone, and sent me home.

I took a couple of those damned pain pills and finally said Screw This! I managed to cure myself by downing a six-pack of those lemon drinks and stoping all of the pills. I exercised my back into shape and finally I was fine.

I put a request into the hospital to view all images taken, with an actual interpretation of such, by a physician. I received a CD with two CT scan images which mean nothing to me, a printout of my blood results which meant nothing to me and no x-ray images. I did receive a bill for almost $900 though.

Here’s my position: I’m almost 70 and I had pictures taken of my insides and my back and I never saw them! This policy of letting the doctor pass judgment on them, without sharing them with the patient, is bullshit. I started bugging them to let me see everything, but finally said screw it. Fuck our local hospital…

So here I am a year later, and the problem has returned. I again have pain that wraps around my back and stomach, but this time, I’m handling it differently. I haven’t taken a single pill, I just deal with the pain. I’ve got those heavy duty pain and muscle relaxer pills up in the cabinet, but they stay there…

I wonder if it’s seasonal? I guess I won’t find out because I’m not going back to our fucking hospital and I’m still paying off last years bill, fifty bucks a month…

This summer? Lot’s of hot springs…

Published
Categorized as Various

Mystery Pic

I’ll bet I could leave this image up for a year and nobody would guess this location.

So, I’ll tell you. Wait for it…

This is the parking lot above the iconic, formally secretive, nude beach near San Diego, Blacks Beach.

Published
Categorized as Various