Dream: No More Room For Drafting Table

I'm in my new apartment.  It's small, but I can get all my stuff into it.  It will do nicely.

New scene: Now my apartment is a large single room that's partitioned into four separate little apartments, like an office space with cubicles.  Still I'm able to get everything important inside.  I have my bed and my drafting table, plus a little space to prepare meals.  So I'm all set.

But now my neighbor shows up, and he decides that the partition between my apartment and his needs to move to make his apartment bigger.  The move seems fair since his space was smaller than mine.  But now my space is too small to fit everything inside.  I decide that my drafting table will have to move out.  I decide to move it into the common area, and I tell the others about it so that they don't get upset.  There's no objection to my moving the table into the common area.

Ultimate Litterbox

The ultimate litterbox is not one that you buy; it’s one that you make yourself!

I’ve searched for years for a solution to our cats’ peeing out of the box problems.

One cat is big and tends to lift his back end when peeing, so I needed a big and tall box. Or he stands in the middle and pees over the edge.  All the covered boxes are too small, and some are even made so that pee that’s sprayed against the side would seep out between the bottom and lid mating surface!

Another cat was bullied away from all the boxes, so he’d pee in entirely different rooms and places, such as on my daughter’s desk. (We re-homed him.)

Another cat is just incontinent and can’t seem to wake up and move to the litterbox in time. Or he’s otherwise demented.

The last cat has no excuse. She’s young and healthy, but she just felt like joining in on the pissing contest!

But ever since re-homing the “Pariah Cat” and intruducing the Ultimate Litterbox, we’ve been pee-free (knock on wood).

Here’s what you do (doo):

1. Start out with a Sterilite tote box, one that’s at least 18” inches tall. I got mine at Walmart for a mere $10 or so. (Maybe it was so cheap because they were all out of lids.) Look for a container with as few “ribs” as possible. You want an inner surface that’s easy to scoop and won’t accumulate waste. Also, note that the clear or transparent boxes (such as the one shown on the right) are much harder to cut. They require a coping saw to cut the opening. The one pictured on the left is the recommended type.  It's easy to cut and the used litter slides right off.
2. Use a box cutter or pocket knife to cut an opening in the side that’s about 7” wide by 9” tall and starts about 6” from the bottom. You can adjust this to suit your cats’ needs. A less mobile cat might need the opening to be lower for easier access. You might make it narrower for a normal weight cat; this was made for our big Tom who’s halfway to being a bobcat.
3. Fill with your favorite cat litter. I used nearly an entire 28lB bag of World’s Best.
4. Sprinkle a cat attractant at the far end to entice the cat to move all the way into the box. This should prevent a cat from peeing out the opening.
5. Place the box on a waterproof mat just in case. The mat pictured here is a Litter Mat. Be sure to choose one that won’t let liquid seep through. Most are woven fiber and inexplicably will let pee through and trap it against the floor – a disaster on a wood floor!

Try it and let me know how you fare.  You might even try it with the lid on, too, if you have a cat that's used to a covered box.

Good luck!

Dream: Blossoming Oak Trees and Flat Tire Service

I’m in the backyard of the house I grew up in, but now my wife and I live there.  The massive oak trees that tower above the house in the backyard have blossoms, like large, solid-colored pansies in lavender and indigo.

I call to my wife who’s indoors.  She comes out to see it.  I suggest that we take a picture from the front of our house and send it to her mother.  The blossoms are too high to take a cutting for indoors.  But I see one that fell on the ground, so I pick it up.  But it’s not a blossom at all.  It’s a weed that’s on top of a load of dog poop.

I get in the car and start it so I can drive to the front of the house.  But then I realize how silly that is, so I park the car, backing in against the house under the master bedroom window so I can walk around to the front.  But I notice that when I put the car into park, the transmission doesn’t lock.  The car continues to roll.  I point this out to my wife.  As well, I hear a grinding sound from the rear at the end of the maneuver.  So when I get out of the car I circle around to look at the rear passenger side wheel.  A thin rim of rusty metal is sticking out al around where the tire meets the rim.  I try to pound it back into place with the back of my fist.  But I also notice that the tire is flat.  The other rear tire also is flat.

Since it’s Saturday, I decide that I’ll have to hurry and remove both wheels so as to drive with them in the other car to have them repaired at the Honda dealership before it closes.

But as I start to remove the wheels, the car slowly transforms into something a lot smaller and resembling something like a carpet cleaner.

I’m at the Honda dealership now.  The “car” is in a carpeted office rather than a repair bay.  I explain the problem to the manager of the repair department.  He calls in a mechanic who takes a look and then goes away.  [This part is a bit foggy.]

Now a female mechanic has been assigned to the car.  She asks me where the car is, so I point in the direction of the office.  She doesn’t believe me that it's in an office.  So she goes looking in the direction of the repair bays.  I decide to bring the car to her.  Although the car is easily picked up like a consumer-grade carpet cleaner, it’s in several pieces, so I can’t carry all of it in two hands.

I pick up the main part of it as well as the front wheels.  Now the mechanic and I are in a reception area of the dealership.  She’s blonde and wearing a white uniform.  I also see my wife’s best friend Lisa there.  Lisa is talking on a landline telephone that has an extremely long coiled cord.  She’s also wearing white.  She has a small, glittering, heart-shaped sticker on her left check.  She does not see me or acknowledge, and I refrain from saying "hi" because she's on the phone.

Dream: Visiting the NYC Work Location

I’m in New York City visiting an office / residential building.  One or more floors of the building is occupied by my employer, an international company that I just started to work for.  The IEEE occupies the fifth floor.  I’m primarily here for work, but I also think I should visit IEEE and meet some people while I’m here.

I’m walking in a hallway of the building, not really paying attention to where I am.  I go through a glass door and a large blue parrot with white or light grey underbelly flies through it in the opposite direction.   I suddenly realize that I'm in the hotel / residential part of the building, and I assume that the parrot is someone’s pet that escaped.  There are glass doors at the end of the hall – the entrance to the gift shop.  I turn around and head back to the office areas.

I walk out the main front doors and see a cellphone on the pavement of the parking lot.  It has separated from the fall, so I pick up the pieces, which include the back cover, the battery and the SIMM card.  I know I should probably bring it back inside, but having just left, I don’t feel like going back in.  So I continue walking toward the street where there’s an open-air cafe.  Fortunately I see a high-level administrative assistant walking briskly away from the building, so I show it to her.  She wants to know where I found it.  She draws a diagram of the parking lot on a piece of lined parper.  I show her on the diagram how it was in the main aisle of the parking lot, behind the third car.  She identifies the parking spot as JP’s, a “Chief” executive, so she seems willing to take the phone in case it’s his.

I start wondering about the long drive back home, especially about what time I should leave in order to avoid lots of traffic.  (There’s really no traffic-free time to leave NYC, but any time close to “rush hour” would be especially bad.)  I keep seeing a large analog clock that reads 6pm, an especially bad time to leave.  It’s puzzling because it appears to be midday.  But then I notice that the clock appears on a very large TV screen, and it’s part of a commercial for a medication called Xarelto.  So it’s really much earlier than that.

I walk over to the outdoor dining area of a pub, which is behind the large building.  At one round table I see three young folks that I know because we once took a class together.  I’m happy to see them, and the table seats four, so it looks like a great place to sit for a while.  But I see that they’re done with their meals, so I decide to just say “hi” and walk on by so that they don’t feel obligated to stay with me when my food eventually arrives.  After all it’s lunch time, and I’m sure they’re on a lunch break from their jobs, so they won’t be able to linger.  I see an older man who’s alone.  (He’s older than those folks, but about my age, I suppose.)  I sit down at his table, and we start chatting.  He mentions that he used to turn his garden over every Spring before planting, but now he no longer does so because experts say it’s bad for a garden.  I agree with him and say that I, too, used to turn over my garden, but I stopped.  Then I go into an explanation of why it’s bad.  It has to do with fungi.  There’s a huge underground network of mycelium that gets damaged by heavy-handed shoveling.  (But I can’t think of the word “mycelium” and I either mumble it or say “mycology”.)  I explain how the mycelium process the minerals in the soil and provide plants with nourishment (as I’ve read in an excerpt of the research of Paul Stamets).  I wonder if I’m annoying or boring the other man – I seem to be monopolizing the conversation.

An Interview With Square Peg

James Lipton, host of the cable TV show "Inside the Actors Studio", gives his guests the following list of ten questions. I thought it would be fun if I tried to answer them...

1. What is your favorite word?
2. What is your least favorite word?
3. What turns you on?
4. What turns you off?
5. What sound or noise do you love?
6. What sound or noise do you hate?
7. What is your favorite curse word?
8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
9. What profession would you not like to do?
10. If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates?

1. I can't decide between "fortuitous" and "serendipity" as my favorite word. As they are akin, I choose to answer with both.
2. I don't have a least favorite word, and I'm not willing scour my soul to figure it out.
3. Kindness, altruism, fairness "turns me on" in a sense, no matter whether I am fortuitous enough to receive it or whether I can spread it.
4. Greed is abhorrent to me.
5. The trickling of a babbling brook is pleasing to me, but even better is the smacking sound my four cats make when they eat breakfast together at dawn.  It's better because the cats are getting replenished, whereas the water just goes somewhere.
6. Loud, discordant noises upset me.  Active construction sites are my least favorite places.
7. My favorite curse word changes over time.  Currently I'm using "Crappazoids" as one might say "Crap" when getting to the traffic light just as it turns red.  If I want to call some asshole something bad, I would use either "F*ckwad" or "F*ckhead".  Oh, wait, "asshole" is curse-like, too, isn't it?
8. I had tremendous difficulty in high school deciding what to do after graduation.  A personality test that I took in the office of the Guidance Counselor suggested that I should go to a college in Oregon to study Forestry.  I think it would've been a good career choice, at least in terms of being fulfilling.  Whether there was money in it, I have no idea.  I'm currently an Electrical Engineer.
9. There are financial folks that negotiate mergers between two companies.  The mergers usually involve firing hundreds of people just to make wealthy people wealthier and to show continued growth on a balance sheet.  Those financial folks are detestable.  It's another matter if one of the companies is failing and the merger strengthens it and saves jobs, though.
10. I would like to hear God (or Whoever) say this to me, "I'm so very sorry for all the shit I put you through."

It's your turn, please let me know your answers!

Wednesday Weigh-In 20180426

It's possible that putting oatmeal on certain skin conditions will make things worse. Sure oatmeal is soothing, but it can also feed populations of yeast, which might be the cause of the rash.

Waist = 43.25"
Height = 5' 9"

References:

1. Wikipedia BMI page
2. Balance Body Composition Bath Scale
3. Javascript must be enabled to view the data.

Wednesday Weigh-In 20180411

I'm focusing on getting at least seven hours of sleep each night and at least 64 ounces of water during the day.

Waist = 42.75"
Height = 5' 9"

References:

1. Wikipedia BMI page
2. Balance Body Composition Bath Scale
3. Javascript must be enabled to view the data.

Wednesday Weigh-In 20180405

I'm trying to include a serving of vegetable with each meal. Today for breakfast I included sauerkraut with my sausage. I had asparagus in the fridge, but I didn't feel like cleaning it and then steaming it. Also, I've started to take vitamins again: D3, Multi, plus a fish oil.

Waist = 42.75"
Height = 5' 9"

References:

1. Wikipedia BMI page
2. Balance Body Composition Bath Scale
3. Javascript must be enabled to view the data.

How I Treat Stubborn Dandruff

When large portions of skin began lifting off my scalp, I tried the usual dandruff shampoos such as products that contain pyrithione zinc or selenium sulfide, the latter of which seemed to work marginally better.  But I wasn’t satisfied with the results, so I went to see a dermatologist.

The doctor described it vaguely as yeast and as an adult form of cradle cap and prescribed Ketoconazole 2% shampoo.  It worked amazingly well.  However, the condition also affected my eyebrows, and it was difficult to apply the shampoo there without also getting some in my eyes.  Also the condition would flare up again and again, and I’d have to treat it again and again.

I did some research into “cradle cap” and found that the itchiness I would experience was not a symptom.  I decided to forget about Ketoconazole and treat it like eczema.

I swapped shampoo for Dove Sensitive Skin Beauty Bar, which I was using on my face anyway.  And afterwards, I applied an eczema lotion such as Gold Bond Eczema Relief lotion or the equivalent store brand.  Finally (and probably most importantly) I cut back on ingesting dairy products and sugar.

This regimen works very well, although occasionally I shampoo a second time with the selenium sulfide shampoo, especially if I fail to stick to a healthy diet.

Commercial lotions for eczema are expensive.  They contain 2% colloidal oatmeal, along with a great deal of other suspicious chemicals.  As oatmeal is quite inexpensive, I wonder if I can just let some oatmeal soak in water overnight and then apply that water to my scalp to rinse out the Dove soap.  So the next step is to try the “oatmeal soak water rinse” to see if I can eliminate the lotion.

I do see a recipe for a DIY oatmeal shampoo, but that seems like too much work at this time.

Wednesday Weigh-In 20180328

I went to bed last night without eating supper. Instead, I divided my large lunch into two smaller meals, which I ate at work. The problems I have with supper include: the time it takes to eat it; the time it takes to clean up afterwards; the fact that it stimulates my urge to binge-eat dessert.

Skipping supper is a great weight-loss plan for me. It cuts down on caloric intake followed by inactivity. It allows me to get to bed earlier and get more sleep if I can stay asleep the whole night. Also, I woke up somewhat hungry this morning. That's not usually the case for me.

Waist = 43.0"
Height = 5' 9"

References:

1. Wikipedia BMI page
2. Balance Body Composition Bath Scale
3. Javascript must be enabled to view the data.

Wednesday Weigh-In 20180321

Spring arrived yesterday, and today we have a "Nor'easter" snow storm. Well, last week's snow didn't accumulate too much, and it melted quickly. I don't think I bothered to shovel the driveway.

Waist = 43.25"
Height = 5' 9"

References:

1. Wikipedia BMI page
2. Balance Body Composition Bath Scale
3. Javascript must be enabled to view the data.

Wednesday Weigh-In 20180314

Just another weigh-in.

Waist = 43.0"
Height = 5' 9"

References:

1. Wikipedia BMI page
2. Balance Body Composition Bath Scale
3. Javascript must be enabled to view the data.

Wednesday Weigh-In 20180307

Just watching the snow fall. And fall, and fall.

Waist = 43.0"
Height = 5' 9"

References:

1. Wikipedia BMI page
2. Balance Body Composition Bath Scale
3. Javascript must be enabled to view the data.

The 30 Day Plank Challenge

A reader recently drew my attention to the 30 day plank challenge, which you can read about here:
http://fitnessgoals.com/30-day-plank-challenge-exercise-workout/

What I like about this exercise is that it strengthens several important muscle groups, but it doesn't cause wear to the joints because there is no motion involved.  My guess is the forearm pose would be much better since it puts no strain on the wrist, so try that if you have any issues with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.

What other exercises do you like?  Let me know!

Does Getting Paid to Do Something Take Away the Enjoyment of That Thing?

Does it seem to you that when you get paid to do something that you love to do, the activity then becomes less enjoyable?

Here's an excerpt from "Swearing is good for you: the amazing science of bad language," by Emma Byrne:

Give most children crayons and paper and they'll happily draw for the fun of it; the intrinsic reward of doing something creative keeps them happy and interested.  But as soon as you pay children for their art, their drawings get sloppy and less detailed.  They also don't seem to enjoy the process of drawing anywhere near as much as when they are offered a treat in return for each piece produced.  In studies, children who know they will be rewarded for their drawings spend only about half as much time playing with crayons as those children who aren't offered a reward.

-page 124

The author references M. R. Lepper, D. Greene, and R. E. Nisbett, "Undermining Children's Intrinsic Interest with Extrinsic Reward: A Test of the "Overjustification" Hypothesis.  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 28 (1973), 129-137. doi:10.1037/hoo35519

Wednesday Weigh-In 20180228

Beautiful weather these past two days.

Waist = 43.0"
Height = 5' 9"

References:

1. Wikipedia BMI page
2. Balance Body Composition Bath Scale
3. Javascript must be enabled to view the data.

Wednesday Weigh-In 20180209

Our driveway is still frozen from the freezing rain that fell Wednesday after the moderate snow storm. But it's not smooth "black ice" -- it's an inch layer of water-saturated snow that froze solid. Despite the conditions, I managed to take the trash cans down to the curb and bring them back up to the house.

Waist = 43.25"
Height = 5' 9"

References:

1. Wikipedia BMI page
2. Balance Body Composition Bath Scale
3. Javascript must be enabled to view the data.

Wednesday Weigh-In 20180124

I got upset this morning by a report on NPR about the melting permafrost in North America. The problem is that tiny organisms exist in this soil, and as they thaw and feed on carbon-rich matter, they release carbon dioxide, which could accelerate global warming. And while that upset me, I was also upset by the idea that parts of Alaska and other far-north areas are experiencing sink holes as a result of the melting permafrost. You see, I'm hoping to move North in an attempt to stay in a "snow belt." My current home has been getting snow so infrequently that the ground stays a depressingly brown combination of dead grass and mud. My preference is to have a few inches of snow fall every five to seven days and for a nice layer protect the lawn. But what if I buy land that develops into a sink hole? Here's a link to the fascinating transcript: http://nepr.net/post/there-ticking-time-bomb-under-arctic

Waist = 43.25"
Height = 5' 9"

References:

1. Wikipedia BMI page
2. Balance Body Composition Bath Scale
3. Javascript must be enabled to view the data.

Wednesday Weigh-In 20180103

Lately I've been waking up after only about 4 hours of sleep. It's as if a dream flips an "on" switch in my brain.

Waist = 43.0"
Height = 5' 9"

References:

1. Wikipedia BMI page
2. Balance Body Composition Bath Scale
3. Javascript must be enabled to view the data.