Milestone achieved – next level unlocked!

May 10th, 2018

Back in February, I noted that Marion and I were working our way through Will and Ariel Durant’s ‘The Story of Civilization.’ Monday night, we finished the first volume (‘Our Oriental Heritage’). It was an interesting book, fascinating in parts. Neither of us found the section on India to be as interesting as the rest, although I think I enjoyed it more than Marion did.

Now, we get to move on to the second volume, which is all about Greece. We’re looking forward to it!

Yesterday was Star Wars Day

May 5th, 2018

I could have posted about it then, but …

I find myself reminded of the J. B. S. Haldane quote

April 4th, 2018

“Now, my own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, it is queerer than we can suppose.”

It turns out that some people are their own twins.

Then again, I guess I knew of the possibility, I just hadn’t considered how widely applicable it might be.

Daylight Saving Time funnies

March 11th, 2018

Still not healthy

February 19th, 2018

I’m still very hoarse and suffering from a nasty cough, and it’s getting old. I’ve already gone through two bottles of cough and cold medicine so far, as well as prescription flu medicine, cough drops, and a box and a half of Theraflu. I’ve been keeping my house warmer, drowsing much of the day, and not getting a lot of things accomplished.

One thing I’m really missing are the evening history sessions Marion and I had been having – we’d started working our way through Will and Ariel Durant’s ‘The Story of Civilization,’ and we’d been doing it almost every night for three weeks or so when I came down with this. I’d been wanting to read the series for several years, and Marion owns a complete set that she’d never gotten around to reading. We’ve been really enjoying it, along with various digressions that we’ve made. Two interesting facts we’ve run across in these digressions are that Cleopatra, the famous Egyptian ruler, was actually Cleopatra VII, and that there was a ruler (Bulan of Khazaria) who converted his entire country to Judaism after speaking with representatives of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

I can’t wait to get back into it when I have a working voice again – I’ve been learning so much.

Not healthy yet

February 14th, 2018

I think I’m over the flu; my fever broke Friday night. My resting pulse is back down where it should be, as is my temperature.

Unfortunately, I have a nasty lingering cough, and I’ve had laryngitis since Sunday, so I’m certainly still under the weather.

I made French onion soup for dinner Monday. That turned out nicely, and hot soup on a cold night is one of my favorite things. The leftover soup was also pretty good for yesterday’s lunch. Scallops with pesto are in the plans for tonight.

I could watch this over and over

February 8th, 2018

I like cooking, and this popped up in my YouTube recommendations. Very interesting, and I think I’ll have to try some of the varieties. A lot of people in the comments complain about the wider shots, but I thought it was very effective and done quite well.

Under the weather

February 8th, 2018

I was diagnosed with Type B Influenza Tuesday. Not the really nasty Type A that’s been running around, but this one does offer GI disorders as a benefit. So much for the effectiveness of the flu shot I received. I’d started noticing symptoms Friday evening or Saturday, but I figured it was probably a cold. I got my flu shot earlier this year, so even though I knew this year’s shots weren’t all that effective, I was hoping I would be ok. Developing a fever Tuesday morning changed my mind, so I called for an appointment with my doctor’s office.

I was impressed with how quickly the diagnosis was made. It must be a new type of test, because I don’t remember this happening the last time I had the flu. They “stirred” an extra-long Q-tip deep in my nostrils, agitated it in the liquid in a small test tube, inserted a piece of indicator paper, and waited a couple of minutes. Bingo – instant diagnosis!

So, I’m now on the generic version of Tamiflu, which says it may not be effective on people who’ve had symptoms for more than two days, and whose major side effects include severe headaches and gastric disruption. Like I need more of that.

The one major warning I was given was to keep track of being out of breath, which is currently happening when I exert myself. If I experience it while resting, I’m to call 911, because “those are the people who are dying.”

Good to know.

Tuesday

February 6th, 2018

A couple weeks ago, I posted a video of ‘Tico, Tico’ that I liked. Since then, I’ve run across some more performances of it that I like. The first one is by Paco de Lucia. He gets pretty fast with his fingers on this. I used to have an LP or two of his. I’m not sure what the short bits that follow his performance are.

Here’s another version that’s pretty fun – it’s by Liberace. He gets some incredible speed in his performance.

Liberace was one of the more flamboyant performers I remember from my youth. I remember Bugs Bunny did a Liberace impression once or twice. Given his over-the-top wardrobe, I wonder if he had the same problem with the IRS that Diana Ross had – they were going to disallow the deductions she took for her stage outfits, but she demonstrated that most of them she couldn’t wear offstage – they wouldn’t allow her to sit down. He couldn’t make the same argument, since he performed sitting down.

Here he is performing ‘Malaguena’ and mugging with Sammy Davis, Jr.

And here’s another version of Malaguena, this time from Chet Atkins.

You can’t trust anyone anymore

January 21st, 2018

I’ve known for years that email addresses can be spoofed, and that phone numbers can be hidden such that you can’t tell who’s calling you – all you see is “Unknown number” or “000-000-0000.” What I hadn’t known is that phone numbers can apparently be spoofed, also.

Just now, I received a phone call from a number I didn’t recognize. It was local, but I get a fair number of local calls from numbers I don’t recognize. I never answer them; I figure they’ll leave a message if it’s not a robocall. Sometimes, even if it is. Either way, I’ve got some screening.

This one, however, had a woman’s voice saying, “Hi. I see that you’ve been phoning my cell phone several times and I would like it to stop. That number is XXX-XX-XXXX. Do not call that number again.”

Unless she dialed a wrong number, someone has been making calls to her, presumably without leaving messages, and making it look as though it was coming from my cellphone.

That’s not a thought that makes me happy. I’m torn between calling or texting her back to explain the situation, but what reason has she to believe me?