Posts in the “personal” category

If you ever want to write your own book as an Amazon Kindle book, here’s the Kindle “supported formats” page.

Per this article on healinghistamine.com, some natural mast cell stabilizers are: Khellin; Quercetin; Epigallocatechin gallate (a green tea compound); Silibinin (from milk thistle); Ellagic acid; Reservatrol; Curcumin; Garcinia mangostana (mangosteen).

The author further states, “Also in the bioflavonoid family are luteolin and apigenin, the latter of which can be found in parsley, celery, rosemary, oregano, thyme, basil, coriander and artichokes.”

March 4, 2017: I’m glad to say that I’ve found a good way to write the end of my book on Scala and functional programming, and I’m writing as fast as I can to get that completed. Unfortunately the bad news is that I started getting sick again this week (pre-syncope and syncope (passing out)), and it’s been slow going because of that. But if I can stay alive, I’m finally happy with how this book is working out.

Apparently today is Rare Disease Day, so in honor of that, here’s this image.

To give you an idea of how rare Mast Cell Activation Disease is, there is a support group on Facebook, and it has only 2,200 members. That’s out of one billion people that use Facebook.

Got to spend my afternoon at The University of Colorado Hospital. Glad to see they are well rated.

This MastAttack.org page may describe what I have been doing through:

“Mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS) (also known as ‘Mast cell activation disorder, or MCAD’) is when a normal amount of mast cells behave badly. It is clinically similar to indolent systemic mastocytosis; life span is normal; biopsies are negative.”

Wikipedia also has a good mast cell activation syndrome page. Both pages cover the MCAS/MCAD symptoms very well.

Here’s a photo I took of a wind farm back in December. I think it’s related to the Wind Research Program at Purdue University.

I eat mostly organic food because it seems to help dramatically with my mast cell disease, but it sounds like a lot of other people are going organic as well. Here’s a quote from this SeattleTimes.com article: “We cannot get enough organics to stay in business day in and day out,” Jelinek told the gathered investors.

One of my favorite albums of all time is Us, by Peter Gabriel. I discovered it during a period of existential angst when I was working on a $3B NASA project, and I learned that the entire project was created and would soon be destroyed because of politics. I started listening to the album again recently while practicing yoga at night. This song is Blood Of Eden.

(Introductory note: In the story that follows, the word “gate” is pronounced “gah-tay”.)

I was intently digging through the bananas in the grocery story, trying to find some that were to my liking, when I heard a woman’s voice say, “Excuse me, do you mind if I ask what that song is that you’re humming? It sounds familiar, but I can’t place it.”

Chicago Cubs’ star Kris Bryant gets pranked by Hall of Famer Greg Maddux:

Via a friend on Facebook:

“My advice: Don’t let yesterday contain the greatest things you’ve ever done. Make tomorrow contain your next great goal. Because once you feel your greatest days are behind you, you begin to die.”

At the very least that quote is about the importance of having goals.

Got this in an email last week, seems appropriate for today: “Marry a person you love to talk to.”

(a facebook post from feb. 14, 2011)

If it seems like someone is winking at you, a) they might be, it’s Valentine’s week, or, b) they may have a condition known as blepharospasm, which is a symptom of MCAS. My right eye started doing this 10-15 years ago, long before I knew anything about MCAS.

(Turns out there are ~5,000 mast cells per cubic mm of conjunctival tissue, i.e., the inside of the eyelids.)

(The image comes from Never Bet Against Occam.)

Back in the days before global warming the winters could be cold and long, and one year on February 11th I was on a yoga retreat in Mexico, which is where this picture was taken.

“The way we experience every part of our lives is affected by the qualities of our mind and by the coloring filters of our mental attitude.”

From the book, When the Chocolate Runs Out

I went of my diet a little last night by eating some mozzarella cheese and half a beer, and this morning I woke up extremely itchy with several bumps. That’s how I roll with my version of MCAS.

To create this graphic, someone Google’d all the queries for “Why is [state] so” (like, “Why is Illinois so”), and mapped the first Google auto-complete result onto each state. Makes me want to spend some time in the “haunted” states.

(They actually Google’d these queries in 2014. Makes me wonder what the current results look like.)

The National Popular Vote website proposes a way to keep the Electoral College but also elect our President based on the popular vote. From their website, “The U.S. Constitution (Article II, Section 1) gives the states exclusive control over awarding their electoral votes: ‘Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors....’ The winner-take-all rule was used by only three states in 1789.” Their idea is that Electoral College voters will vote for whichever candidate wins the popular vote.

The song of the day today is “Those Shoes,” by The Eagles, and it’s inspired by a young woman I saw working her way through 8-10 inches of fresh snow today in red pumps. (I tried wearing high heels for Halloween one year, and I have no idea how women can walk in those things, let alone walking in snow.) I also thought of it after watching The History of the Eagles again recently.