Posts in the “personal” category

Tony Fadell, Chris Sacca, and other people are matching donations to the ACLU today. Learn more at this Twitter link.

“Look, I have no illusions, okay? I know that the life I live ... I know how it's gonna end for me. Whatever. I'm okay with that. But I wanted you to know ... that when I do picture myself happy ... it's with you.”

~ Dean, Supernatural

One good thing about mast cell disease: because I’ve had to follow a strict low-histamine diet I’ve lost almost twenty pounds in the last eighteen months, with most of that coming in the last six months. I’ll soon weigh what I weighed in high school (albeit it without the same muscle mass). This is a photo of my during my first year in college, where I was at roughly the same weight.

If you’re interested in a similar story, you can find before and after photos of the “Low Histamine Chef” (Yasmina Ykelenstam) at this link. For me the important thing is not getting down to a low weight, but a healthy, sustainable weight where I feel good.

“It was unbelievable,” a drained Moya told a handful of reporters after the match. “He’s such a fighter, a warrior. I have no words to describe for what I saw today.”

Four years ago, at the 2013 French Open, Nadal explained how he had learned to enjoy suffering in big matches, finding the joy of winning so much better as a result. The indomitable spirit -- no matter what travails Nadal has endured -- has not waned.

On Friday, we saw the grimaces on his face, the clenched fists, screams of vamos. The emotion was raw, especially when he lost the fourth-set tiebreaker. Moya could barely watch.

(From this espn.com article on Rafael Nadal)

2016: The National Park Service is nice, I like the Redwoods and Volcanoes.

2017: I will follow the National Park Service into battle.

(from this twitter page)

I don’t know what happened to Freedom of Speech in the U.S., but I like this.

When I was sick last summer I couldn’t even come close to thinking about a Map while programming. Feeling much better these days after radically altering my diet, I have used many maps over the last two days to solve programming problems elegantly:

Map<Tuple<Position,RatingType>, Spinner> positionRatingSpinnerMap = new HashMap<>();

That code gives me an easy way to lookup an Android Spinner widget based on a football player’s position (QB) and rating type (short passer, long passer, runner).

I have to say, it feels good to have my brain back.

When you have a rare genetic mutation (I prefer the term “posthuman”), doctors like to give you orange jugs.

I haven’t been feeling well the last few days, and this afternoon when I had the chills I decided to have a cup of tea to warm me up. I recently bought some new tea, so I thought I’d give it a try. A short while later I got itchy and started breaking out in hives. All of that is how life with mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS) goes.

In a mostly-unrelated note, here’s a link to a July, 2016 research article titled, Intestinal cell damage and systemic immune activation in individuals reporting sensitivity to wheat in the absence of coeliac disease.

There used to be a magical mirror, called the Mirror of Truth. If someone looked into it and said a lie, they would die immediately. In the land where it existed, everyone from kings to merchants was subject to its justice. One day Mulla Nasrudin came to this land and was brought before the Mirror of Truth to test his honesty. He declared, “I am telling a lie.” Nothing happened. “I think I broke your mirror,” said Mulla.

(I don’t remember where I read this, but I just found it in some old notes and thought I’d share it here.)

Started the drive at 5:50 EST Tuesday in Kentucky. Waited out the morning’s snowstorm with some old-timers and truckers at a McD’s in Georgetown, Indiana. Maneuvered through the snow and ice induced wrecks between Corydon and Evansville. Wanted to kiss the ground when it finally got dry after 11am. Drove through the sunset in Kansas, then followed the truckers, Moon, and stars across the rest of Kansas and Colorado, arrived “home” at 12:20am MST Wednesday. Looking forward to seeing if the mountains are white whenever I wake up.

(A note from December 11, 2013)

She stood in front of me crying, her body shaking, her hands clenched. “I don’t know how to love someone ... so duck,” she said, sobbing.

“What?,” I said, ducking.

She looked at me funny. “What are you doing?,” she asked.

“I’m ducking.”

“Why?”

“You said ‘duck.’”

“Duck? No, I didn’t say ‘duck,’ I said, ‘I don’t know how to love someone so dark,’” she said, now crying and laughing at the same time.

(A little flash fiction inspired by me mis-hearing the lyrics of a song by Marian Call. Needs improvement, I know, but I’m traveling today, and that’s all I’ve got.)

“Never let the fear of striking out get in your way.” ~ Babe Ruth

I took some time today to work on the UI for the second version of my Android football game. This is my current best-guess, rough-sketch of what it should look like:

The basic idea is that when you’re on offense you (a) choose the formation, (b) choose the play, then (c) press Go to run the play. This gives a chance to change the formations and plays, especially once the defense gets smart enough to respond to what you’re doing.

Rick: If it’s December 1941 in Casablanca, what time is it in New York?

Sam: Uh, my watch stopped.

(Part of the lead-in to one of the great lines in movie history.)

The movie The Hidden Fortress is said to have a major impact on the Star Wars series. From Wikipedia: “George Lucas has acknowledged the heavy influence of The Hidden Fortress on Star Wars, particularly in the technique of telling the story from the perspective of the film's lowliest characters, C-3PO and R2-D2. Lucas's original plot outline for Star Wars also had a strong resemblance to the plot of The Hidden Fortress, which would be reused for The Phantom Menace.”

This is part of a great story by Pema Chödrön about what her teacher, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, told her when her life hit rock bottom. From this article on LionsRoar.com.

I like the quote by Pema Chodron (PC) that’s shown in this image, but personally a better one for me is, “You know what, I screwed up here, and I need to own that.”

It took me about 43 years to stop blaming other people for my problems. Then one day I finally said to myself, “The only reason I don’t live in Alaska is because of me. The only reason I don’t practice yoga more is me. The only reason I don’t meditate more is me.”

A couple of times a year I still open my mouth to start blaming other people or situations for my problems, but I try to catch myself before the words actually come out, and when I wrongfully accuse someone else for my problem of the moment, I do try to apologize.

(It’s worth noting that I think PC and I are talking about two different circumstances. I’m talking about things that are under my control, which are the 99.9% of the things that happen to me in my daily life. I have read several books by PC, and I suspect that this quote is about people who have been harmed by things out of their control, such as family violence. I absolutely agree with her quote in that context.)

While reading Carlos Santana’s autobiography I’ve been trying to explore more of his music. This video shows two of his songs — Soul Sacrifice and Evil Ways — at Woodstock in 1969.

One of my favorite songs of the last year or so is One Slip, by Pink Floyd:

“One slip and down the hole we fall
It seems to take no time at all
A momentary lapse of reason
That binds a life for life
A small regret you won’t forget
There’ll be no sleep in here tonight.
(Was it love, or the idea of being in love?)”