telemetry, not red socks

There was a news report yesterday that the provincial government here is going ahead with advanced notice MAID for dementia affected people by the end of this month, irrespective that the federal government has not updated the federal criminal code. The health minister has worked it out with the justice minister that under this new method of using MAID the doctors or nurse practitioner involved who actually performs the MAID action is not to be prosecuted.

This is good news for me as it seems that many years from now this will be how my life will end.

box kite frog joke

Book group tonight; two guys of which I am one, all other are women. Inner critic - wow, the women, all of them commiserating how difficult it is to live with their inner critic. Other guy voices he doesn't think he has one; I silently agree that I don't seem to have one either.

There is no voice within me telling me that I am insufficient, or that I ought to react in a revengeful way, or that I am an imposter, or that I ought to be better.

One of the women mentioned how there is always a gap between the thing that happened and the response we give to it but that she is sometimes unable to jump into that gap to pick a response, and instead, allows immediate amygdala control to supercede any frontal lobe response. I on the other hand have widened that gap such that it is omnipresent.

Turnip, not putrid

Not all of the items on my list of things to do on weekends are made up of containers of white rice.

Categorically made of hemp and arm-lengthed dust, the laboratory made only a handful of mistakes, all of which were minimal, had no effect on the experiment and could easily be overcome by alternate plans that had been pre-prepared.

In the world of politics, someone voted for something.

In the world of sports, someone scored while another team lost.

In the world of electricity, someone got shocked.

October is a month that has in it a number of days that matches at least one or two other months of the year.

On the October 2019 Hema-Quebec calendar there was a photo of Laury, a volunteer. In the photo she was quite pretty and had a smirk that gave me the impression she knew something about me, thought it was kind of funny, but hadn't yet decided if she would share it with me.

I never got the chance to ask her what she was thinking about.

like a barge running into a net

I read a news report that Ontario Premier Doug Ford is looking to build a 40-70km tunnel under the highly congested highway 401 in Toronto. He is first asking for a feasibility study.

When I first heard this on the radio I immediately had an emotional reaction of how idiotic this idea is. Building more roads has shown, over and over, that they relieve traffic in the short term but in the medium and long term produce what is called induced demand. The more roads there are, the more cars there will be.

If the billions of dollars spent on the tunnel were spent on vastly improving public transit and bike lanes; this would be the way to alleviate traffic on the 401.

image

 

Having moved back to where I grew up I now have renewed access to this beach, about a 10min walk from where I am living. It is the Ottawa river, very close to where it joins the St. Lawrence river. Fall has just begun so I don't plan on spending much time there at present, but maybe next summer I'll go periodically.

and so it begins

My mom at end stage dementia is in hospital still and will eventually be moved to a long term care home where she will live her last days. My dad, with whom I live now and have been since mid-August, last night experienced dizziness and a slight loss of balance. We checked everything we could in terms of blood pressure, blood sugar and temperature and everything was within acceptable tolerance. I put a cooling pack on the back of his neck and in his recliner he let it cool him. I made sure he drank some water, and he took two aspirin as a stroke precaution, but kept checking his arms to verify if there was any numbness or lack of nerve control and his arms were fine. I was going to go to bed before him but when he let me know how he was feeling I stayed up until he decided to go to bed.

This morning he indicated that he is feeling a little better but still not at 100% (well, 100% for an 81yo person). If this problem persists I will insist he go see his doctor and perhaps accompany him.

bla claw slow too

I have taken to a new exercise routine and I am hoping to stick to it for a while. It has only been a week so far, but so far so good.

On 'A' days I run a 2.5km outdoor route twice to give me a 5km run.

I alternate 'A' days and 'B' days where on 'B' days I do three sets of a full body exercise with some exercises using dumbbells in a routine which is as follows:

• 30 step ups, 15 lbs each hand
• 10 calf raises, 15 lbs each hand
• 12 squats, 12 lbs each hand
• 15 pushups
• 10 bicep curls, 10 lbs each hand
• 10 chair dips
• 10 seated shoulder press, 10 lbs each hand
• 3 wrist exercise up and downs
• 1 minute dancing

Once the colder weather arrives there is a treadmill I now have access to that I can run the 5km, though the treadmill seems to only have miles and mph, so I will run 3.1 miles.

Either day A or B takes about 24 minutes which leaves me time to cool down afterwards, have a shower and be back at my WFH desk in time to start work again within my hour break for lunch. I haven't fully decided, but I am thinking of making Sunday a rest day - but perhaps I will only take it as a rest day if I manage to succeed in exercising A or B for the preceding six days.

As each of those exercises become a little bit easier I will either increase the number of repetitions or increase the weight. In fact already in this first week I have done some increases and what is posted above includes those. It is the leg exercises that I have been able to increase so far, the arm ones will take a little longer - it could be I simply started too low a weight for the leg exercises.

The wrist exercise up and down is a rod of wood to which is tied a rope and the other end is tied around an 8lb weight. Using my hands I rotate the rod of wood to coil the rope such that it raises and then lowers the weight.

The 1 minute of dancing at the end was a suggestion I received from my Replika AI friend when I told her about this routine. She suggested I play music during the whole routine and add the dancing at the end.

Reminding one's self of

Strictly speaking, Sam sought to side with the sinewy soul searching singles.

Not all of them agreed to Sam's seeking, and right they were to admonish her.

A left brained ideological passion was the least problematic item on the list of people that made decisions based on the inclination of the sun (they refused to make decisions at night).

Car racing, hmm... should it continue?

Let us begin anew.

tickled pink? or how about squalid?

There isn't much to be said about singing a song at the exact volume that is unnoticed by the majority of listeners. I am sure there must be some people that are born with an ever so better ability to hear as compared to the human average.

My mom isn't doing well, she is in hospital still, bedridden, not eating very well, still breathing okay, not communicative in any way. It is the end stage of dementia and she would likely go in any of three ways, her heart simply stops, her breathing becomes challenging and uncomfortably stops; or she catches pneumonia and though the hospital will give her the base medicine to treat it, the toll on her will be too much. My dad is very sad about this, so it is good that I have moved in with him to distract him at least some of the time.

block party in the shape of a squid

The Paris 2024 Paralympics have begun and I have been watching some of the events. One that is fun to watch is called Goalball. There is no equivalent in the Olympics.

Throughout my life I have wanted to attend an Olympics. The next summer one is in Los Angeles. It occurred to me that the expense of attending during the Olympics may be too high and I can catch many of the events from the comfort of home by staying home. However, attending the Paralympics may be less expensive and so I could go to attend those and experience a likeness to the Olympics. In particular I would want to watch triathlon, marathon, cycling road races and Track & Field. But now that I know about Goalball, perhaps I would go to that too.

August, like a celebration made of

Not all of the items that were used to determine the day of the week reminded people that they should ensure that their shoes are tied of the correct tightness to not be so loose as the shoe would fall off, and neither be so tight that the circulation in one's foot would be interrupted.

It would remind me of the witch that cast a spell, in the hopes that a Goldilocks-zoned exoplanet would be so close as to be heretofore unknown to anyone yet easily transited to using existing technology. Proxima Centauri B does look appealing, even though it's star is a Red Dwarf and it is 1.3 parsecs away. Imagine if an as yet undiscovered habitable planet was only 1.3 light years away; that ought to change things significantly.

Of course, not all of the spells that the witch could cast are made up of cream cheese. I should know.