Thursday, December 29, 2011

Today's Observations

We all want to be more like the dude, but the truth is we are all a lot more like Walter.

The story Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer delivers the important message to children to always be kind to others, since you never know if they might someday become of use to you.

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Seasonal Illness

Christmas break has begun and I feel lousy. Furthermore, I think I have felt similar to this during December and January of previous years. I have no records of this, but my memory tells me so. In any case, it started last week Monday 12/12 with malaise and some upper repertory symptoms (dry, scratchy throat, runny nose, sneezing, watery eyes) and as of this Monday 12/19 it all seems to have convalesced into a sinus infection. The sign is obvious: abundant, distinctly yellow and think mucus. I can flush it out, but it soon comes back. I saw the doctor today who diagnosed a sinus infection. I started antibiotics today. It is also noteworthy that I have been taken astragalus (non-standardized) and reishi (standardized) since Thursday 12/15. I wonder if I'd be the same or worse if I had not been taking them? Still, I think I will try to supplement in the future hoping to avoid seasonal illnesses. I want to try it and see if it works. Even before this current illness, I did have several occasions during the semester of what seemed like a mild cold and malaise. Olivia and Neil were also often sick this fall.

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Obvious fact: home remedies and many other things are sometimes dangerous.

Below is an article I recently found. I have many times over the years irrigated my sinuses with warm tap water. In fact, I have had a cold for the past week and have done so on several occasions. But not anymore. The truth is I find it to be completely effective for flushing out thick and stubborn congestion as well as being comforting to the interior of the nose. My new practice is this: boil 8 ounces of water and pour into a cup with one-fourth teaspoon of salt. Then I leave a thermometer in and check on it periodically until the temperature falls to 110 to 120 degrees Fahrenheit. Then irrigate.

What follows are excerpts from the article from http://www.dailymail.co.uk.

Louisiana's state health department issued a warning about neti pots - which look like mini watering cans, that are used by pouring salty water through one nostril. It follows two recent deaths - a 51-year-old woman and a 20-year-old man from the 'brain-eating amoeba' Naegleria fowleri.

Both victims are thought to have used tap water, instead of distilled or sterilised water as recommended by the manufacturers. Dr Raoult Ratard, Louisiana State Epidemiologist, said: 'If you are irrigating, flushing, or rinsing your sinuses, for example, by using a neti pot, use distilled, sterile or previously boiled water to make up the irrigation solution.

'Tap water is safe for drinking, but not for irrigating your nose.'

The very rare infection typically occurs when people go swimming or diving in warm freshwater lakes and rivers.

In very rare instances, health experts said such infections may also occur when contaminated water from other sources, such as from an inadequately chlorinated swimming pool or when people irrigate their sinuses with devices like neti pots.

Monday, December 12, 2011

On being practically useless

I have gradually come to the realization over the past year or so that I am practically useless. Actually, I guess It all started soon after I graduated from college. I have bachelor's degrees in philosophy and mathematics, and a master's degree in mathematics. After finally finishing the master's degree I became disappointed in the realization that I couldn't repair or build or design anything in spite of all my years in school. You might think that my education still counted for something, but I'm also embarrassed to say that at that time I couldn't have given a good answer to why math or philosophy might be considered important. I even made very good grades, and I graduated with highest honors. But I did not cheat in college; I learned how to give the right answers on assignments without really learning why it was important.

Moving on. So recently I have started to become interested in a topic of real economics. Now, "real economics" is my own term, but I can quickly define it as my thoughts on the real values of things and on how to best make a living in this world. The basis of real economics for me are the assumptions that there is no free lunch in this world and wealth comes only from hard work. I have changed my thinking from a retirement plan that relies on living off saved money and investments to one that also involves discovering ways to work productively and happily for longer. Money is also a frequent topic for me. Isn't it true that money only has value in it that it is a great facilitator of trade between people. I think that most people could be forced to admit that physical money is worthless. I suppose that money could be exchanged for a somewhat perennial something to be used as a store of wealth, such as metal or land or fuel. Typically, my labor will directly command only money. If I grow food in my garden, as I often do, my labor has actual wealth as its direct product. The same thing is true when I repair my car. Now, it might seem that I'm wanting to revert back to a more primitive life in which I live off the land and barter for what I don't have. But that's not the case. The case I'm making is that I don't want to be ignorant of what real wealth and labor are.

I hope you can see why the proceeding paragraph is relevant to my original topic of being practically useless. Lately, I have been more seriously considering improving myself in this way. I guess you could call it a back-up plan. Another reason for my motivation is that it has caused me to lack fulfillment to spend so much of my time involved in impractical activity.

So, there are degrees of skill that I could pursue, some being more primitive than the rest. Learning to live off the land would be at one extreme. Skills such as accounting or computer programming are at the other. In the middle I see subjects such as electronics and car repair. The next question is whether to go to school or not, but I'll have to think about that another time.

Friday, December 9, 2011

Stock Investing

I've spent most of this evening learning about stock investing, and my approach is to look at historical information for various stocks and applying that information to various investment scenarios. Let's start here: suppose I end up with $10,000 for which I have no need for except to keep it safe. Now, I'm also worried about inflation and so I want to invest to get returns to at least match inflation. Bank accounts and CD's aren't going to do that. At this time, a five year CD will pay about 2.25% compounded monthly. (That's an effective rate of 2.27%.) This CD far surpasses what a savings account will earn.

So, let's look at the stock scenario. Consider AT&T. Over the past 5 years the price of this stock has been somewhat steady, and the dividend rate has been nearly constant at $0.398 per share. Dividends are paid 4 times per year. If I had put my money there one year ago, what would my annual return have been through dividends alone that are not reinvested? Using $10,000 to buy AT&T stock on 1/3/2011 would have bought me about 377 shares. Four dividends were paid this year each at a rate of $0.398 per share. That's a total income of about $600, which is about 6% of my investment. Not bad. The next consideration is broker fees and taxes.

Now, I already have mutual funds. Let me consider the same scenario for my Capital Income Builder fund. On 1/3/2011 $10,000 would have gotten me about 201 shares at $49.53 per share. Four dividends will be paid at around $0.46 per share. That would have lead to about $375 in dividends for the year, or 3.75% of the investment. The difference seems to be that the share price was so high at the time of buying into the fund in this scenario.

I ran the same scenario for General Electric for 2011 with cam out to 5.8% return. I wonder if I am correct...

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Nightmares

Last night I had a nightmare. The subject of the nightmare is not really important, and it was like any other nightmare in that the terrifying scenario of the dream seemed completely real. And it was because it seemed real that I had to go through the terrible experience of feeling what it would be like if it really was real.

Of course, if anything terrible really does happen in real life, then we want a way out. We'll do anything to undo or mitigate the terrible events. The same is true of nightmare. When I had my nightmare, I wanted a way out. I wanted it to not be true. What seems curious about nightmares, however, is that there is a way out. It's all going on in my mind, and I know the nightmare is just a dream. But I don't have access to that during the nightmare, and I have to suffer. Who restricts my access within my own mind? In other words, how can nightmares happen?

Now, the simple response to this is to just accept that nightmares do happen. Who would deny that. What seems so strange to me is that every night we enter this field of consciousness in which certain parts our ordinary knowledge are off limits. So it's not that dreams are an entirely different world. They're not. It just seems that we can't have access to a few facts that are ordinarily extremely obvious.

Another response is to say that dreams are meant to force us to experience alternate realities or scenarios, and the only way that can successfully happen is if we temporarily fail to realize how things really are.

Sunday, November 20, 2011

How to cook beans

Tonight I made a delicious 15 bean soup. This is something I have tried to make in the past, but it has never turned out very well. But tonight I think I've found the right way to do it.

Ingredients: 15 bean soup mix, with or without included seasoning. Salt. Fresh cilantro. Olive oil. Light beer. No meat.

Start by soaking and then rinsing the beans. Soak for an about an hour. Some recommend soaking overnight, which will decrease cooking time. Discard the water used to soak the beans. This will make them more digestible.

As you cook the beans, temperature is obviously important. In the past, I have cooked to low, which makes the cooking time impractically long. The beans do not turn out tender at low temperatures. I think the key is a consistent simmer, with bubbles gently breaking at the surface, but without any obvious splattering or undulating at the surface. I checked often, and at times the simmer was starting to get intense, I stirred a little beer to cool it down.

Seasoning: Save all seasoning and oil for the very end. Salt added at the beginning will make the beans tough and extend the cooking time (or so I've been told.) Right before serving I added fresh, minced cilantro from the garden. Tonight, I added the salt and oil just before the cilantro. It takes a lot of stirring and tasting to adjust the salt content.

Tonight's beans cooked in about 5 hours, with a 1 hour soak beforehand. They were tender and delicious. I hope they will be even better tomorrow.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Sometimes, in the middle of the day, well before bedtime, I find myself thinking about the beer that I plan to enjoy in the evening.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

How to please the senses.

How to please the senses: expensive beer, tea and dark chocolate.

Monday, August 15, 2011

hypnagogic delusion

I've heard of hypnagogic hallucinations before, but never of hypnagogic delusions. It's my own term, in fact, to describe some recent experiences. Before I mention the experiences, I want to share some background. Many years ago when I learned what schizophrenia was it was the delusions that were hard to understand. It was a silly state of mind to not understand delusions. I mean, I understood what delusions were, but the trouble was I just couldn't accept that people had them. A normal reaction upon learning about schizophrenia would be to just accept that the disease often caused one to hold beliefs despite good evidence to the contrary. It seemed so strange that one could process the evidence but not let go of the belief.

In any case, it became more satisfying to me to think that what we believe is not up to us. It is up to something else, say the brain. This something else creates the experiences of believing whatever, or anything. What we normally think of as so essential to beliefs - evidence and logic - have nothing at all to do with beliefs. Believing something is just the experience of believing.

Moving on. I have had a few hypnagogic hallucinations before, although not in a long time. And now, hypnagogic delusions. That's right. There have been a few occasions recently when falling asleep that I have believed something that was false. I guess then these weren't true delusions: how did I know they were false? It was a strange experience of experiencing a belief in a way that it seemed 99% as real as any normal belief but with a 1% of me saying "this is not true." For example, I had as I was falling asleep this strange experience of believing that certain gestures of the hand would cause me to know all there is to know. Even then there was the 1% of me saying "this is absurd and not true!" But I could not release myself from the experience. I was stuck for a while in the experience of believing. The other occasion was less bizarre but of the same nature and involved believing things from childhood inaccurately.

What's the cause of this? Now, how would I know. I can say that I have been practicing self-hypnosis and visualization a lot lately. That has seemed to have led to some very brief episodes of lucid dreaming. It makes sense because the experiences of visualization and hypnosis are a lot like dreaming, and it does seem like practice for lucid dreaming. It doesn't seem strange then that it has caused my mind to become overactive in other ways.

Now, more about hypnosis. I have found the experience to be sometimes frustrating and sometimes fascinating. I remember getting the impression from t.v. that detectives sometimes use hypnosis to cause witnesses of crime to recall "forgotten" details. I don't know if this is true, but if it is I can see why. During hypnosis, details of the past sometimes flood in with abundance and ease that I would not be able to produce in ordinary consciousness. Another interesting thing about the experience are the emotions that rouse. I remember one uneventful day on which my emotions were somewhat flat. No highs, or lows. I went into hypnosis and took myself back to the home I first lived in. Many details of the scenery came with ease. I saw myself as a young child, exploring the creek behind our house. I saw myself and my love of plants and animals that I still have today. That time is gone now and it was so tender to witness it again. Like I said, the experience turned around what had been an emotionally flat day.

Saturday, August 6, 2011

Turmeric Tea

I know how to make turmeric tea now. Bring one cup of water to a boil and pour over one-quarter teaspoon of ground turmeric (from the spice rack). Let steep for 10 minutes, covered to keep hot, and stir occasionally. Pour into second cup trough ordinary tea strainer. Not all sediment will be removed, but don't worry. In the second cup, after straining, add one diced ginger candy. This adds sweetness and the ginger combines nicely with turmeric. (One ginger candy has 5 grams of sugar. See http://www.gingerpeople.com). The tea will still be hot. Stir to dissolve the ginger candy, then enjoy.

I made this tea for the first time today and it was delicious, stimulating but without caffeine.

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Gracie: May 2004 - May 5th 2011

Something terrible has happened: Gracie has died. The story of her death begins on the evening of Wednesday, May 4th. I got home from work early that night and I soon decided to go to bed early due to malaise. Right before bed, I let Gracie in, as usual. As soon as she stepped in the door I could tell something was wrong. She seemed to not want to walk. She was behaving as if her back legs were asleep. But I am impatient these days and so I just tried to hustle her into the garage. It was awkward for her and took a lot of encouragement from me. But Gracie is known to be skittish and nervous and she had displayed similar behavior before. I thought she had a leg injury. The only symptom I initially noticed was trouble walking. Once she was in her kennel I noticed that she did not seem in any pain, but she did seem very alert and her eyes were wide open. There was no vomiting, or panting. Darcy and I tried to coax her back out of her kennel for the sake of more observation, but she would not come out. We could have taken her to the 24 hour vet, of course, but we didn't. I did not think the situation was an emergency and I thought we'd take a second look at things in the morning. Why was that my judgment? I don't know. I hope it was a justifiable instinct, but I fear it was just selfishness and wanting to just go to bed. I thought (or told myself) that it was just a leg injury and if she just stayed immobile for the night we could go to the vet the next day.

It turns she did go to the vet the next day. She was no different in the morning. She had urinated in the kennel and was still sitting in it. There was some drool hanging from her lip. We called the vet, loaded her kennel in the car and Darcy had to drive her to Plano by herself, fighting the smell of urine in the car. Even then as we loaded her kennel I took the situation seriously but I wasn't worried. I still thought that she'd had a leg injury of some kind and that the pain had now gotten very bad. Gracie had been known in the past to have a very low pain tolerance. She was behaving strangely, but strange behavior was common for her. She was unfortunately a often nervous and anxious dog.

Anyway, she was soon dead after arriving at the vet. Now I've learned some obvious things. I can't get a second chance to take this more seriously. The past few years with Gracie have been trying. We have gradually accepted that she is not compatible with our small children or our other dog, Teak. That was a hard notion for us to accept since we naturally see our dogs living inside with the family, as part of the family. For the past six months or so Gracie was only allowed two places: in the backyard, or in the garage. But even then she posed a threat. A week before she died, on my birthday, she killed a kitten that had gotten into the yard. She attacked and injured Teak in the back yard on several occasions. My plan for today had she not died was to make here an enclosure so we could keep her outside and out of trouble. We were going to keep her until the end. There were some in the past who urged us to euthanize her. I still remember the agony in feeling the pressure to make that decision. In fact, she committed two separate transgressions that led to the possibility of euthanasia. (Once when Darcy was pregnant with Olivia, and once during the summer of 2010 where she attacked Teak.) But in the end we decided to work harder for Gracie, so that she could live out her natural life. Once her enclosure was built, I thought we would finally reach equilibrium with her. She didn't mind being outside or in the garage at all. We still went for walks. She seemed happy.

In any case, it is depressing now that she's gone. I have already mentioned too many bad things about Gracie. I hate to do that, but they are part of the story of her life. It was rough for her near the end because she found herself in a familial situation that she wasn't cut out for. But life was good for her and I in the beginning. I feel pretty worthless now that Gracie's story has ended, but I hope she feels I gave her a life worthy of envy in the beginning. Lot's of affection and walks. Someday I hope to write about those good times. The times she loved were when it was just me and her. The problem is that life has gotten more complicated since those first few years, and neither of us has handled it very well. Some of the terrible attitudes and behaviors have swelled in me over the past few years: impatience, irritability, always being in a hurry, anger, hatred, pessimism, having low expectations, psychological and physical tension. I get so fixated on anger and find myself in prolonged trances over it. I daydream and am introspective to the point of not being able to pay attention to those around me. Now, none of this is directed at my family, but it does no good for them either. I hate to admit it, but neither of the dogs has gotten much attention or affection in a long time. I hate to admit that I had seen them too often as burdens and extra work. All I can say is that now that Gracie is gone and I have missed my last chance to be with her I can't describe how bad I feel about who I've become. I hope she can forgive me, if I deserve it.

Saturday, April 2, 2011

Southern Pea

The Southern Peas were planted on April 1st 2011. There are three rows of 14 plants each. I plan to plant a few more rows as I have time to clear the rest of the garden. Right now, collard greens from last fall are blooming and producing seed. Once they're done with that, I'll clear and plant more peas and okra. Nothing but peas, okra and tomatoes this year. I had a few small patches of peas last year at various times, as an experiment. The plants germinate and grow very well, even when planted in the middle of August! It was very interesting to see these tiny pea seedlings thrive on hot August days. By comparison I have tried to plant beans before, but they have always germinated and grown terribly even when planted in the nurturing conditions of the spring. The bean experiments have never lasted very long. In any case, the peas grow well and are not defeated by the hot and dry summer. The quantity of peas harvested was neither insignificant nor impressive, but the flavor of the peas harvested at the green mature stage is amazing. I hope I have enough plants to eat peas often this summer.

Update 4/8/2011: About half of the seeds have sprouted.

Update 5/19/2011: I had to scrap the first planting of southern peas. The good news is that when I pulled them up there was evidence of nitrogen-fixing bacteria on the roots. Thrips had attacked the original planting from the beginning, but the most damage was done to the peas from a spell of cold and wet weather. They looked terrible after that. I planted too early since southern peas don't respond well to cool weather. The next batch was planted on 5/6/2011. Germination was good. The seedlings look good now, and none appear to be damaged by thrips. Perhaps the warmer conditions lead to better resistance to the thrips.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Spring tomatoes have been planted.

In an effort to make my gardening habit more scientific I want to make a note that tomatoes were planted on March 17th 2011. This year I have three plants and two varieties: 2 Celebrity and 1 Early Girl. I planted in the usual way, which is to first soak and saturate the pots in a seaweed and fish emulsion mixture. And I threw a handful of basic organic fertilizer in the hole before planting. I saw plenty of earthworms (of what I believe are the red wiggler type) but I did not dig around as much as normal and did not add as many soil amendments as usual. There is still kale and collard greens in the garden from last fall. Everything else was killed by the cold. This must have been the coldest winter since I have lived here, in the sense that plants that usually survive the winter did not this year. The cilantro was killed, and the confederate jasmine appears to be killed also (although I noticed new growth on it yesterday). Cilantro has survived in the past and had attracted great numbers of ladybugs throughout the spring.

This year's planting date is about the same time as last year's, and last year's crop was very successful. The first tomato last year was harvested on May 17th, and their were about 120 total tomatoes harvested from 4 different plants! (And I'm not counting the cherry tomatoes.)

Update 5.24.2011: First Early Girl tomato harvested.
Update 6.27.2011: Last tomato harvested and the plants are done. 53 total harvested throughout the season.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Another Garden Update

Here is the current news on the vegetable garden. I'm still (as of yesterday) enjoying mustard greens, and have been eating them frequently for a few months now. The first harvest was probably sometime in November, but the plants have grown (and continue to grow) so well that it looks like they haven't even been touched. (Or maybe there were just so many to begin with.) In any case, the greens are delicious. I don't know if my seed will be good when the next planting time arrives, but it may not matter since I noticed a few of the plants are about to bolt.

The broccoli was also a success this year. I think it tasted as good as broccoli possibly can, which is delicious. But I have even more good news about it. I found an uncommon recommendation that broccoli can be successfully grown if the transplants are placed with an in row spacing of 4 to 6 inches. By comparison, it is easy to read elsewhere and find 12 to 15 inches as the recommendation. The smaller spacing was interesting to me because the garden is so small and I like broccoli so much. The bottom line is I planted with the 4 to 6 inch spacing and each plant produced a flower cluster of good size. I had 9 plants total.

Another interesting fact from this season is that I used no fertilizer, with the exception of some compost at planting time and the usual year-round garbage. Again the bottom line is that each plant produced more than I could eat. If all that was in spite of not applying extra fertilizer, then that's even better.

The plants will meet their end sometime, but it appears that it won't be due to cold weather. I have already seen temperatures cold enough to freeze the water in the dog's water bowl. The plants did appear damaged on those mornings, but it was only appearance. Once the day warmed the mustard greens, broccoli and lettuce appeared normal and still tasted good.