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 29, 2011
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)