Concerns

An unusual (for me) Saturday post.  But, I am doing so in a few moments in between other computer work as I sit here in my home office trying to figure things out and catch back up on a lot of things.

A variety of concerns are items I am trying to figure out and deal with:

1. Still working on getting phone contacts set up.  It is very time consuming.

2. The other items on my phone that are difficult involve some of my "fun" aspects as well.  The new phone had required me to download the browser I had used before when accessing blogs for everyone... and unfortunately, the bookmarks are gone, so I am trying to establish them again.  Some are easier as I can go to comments and see the person's links to their own blog, but in some instances, the comment does not lead back to an indication of the person's blog.  It means I am not able to contact all people yet.  I am trying to fix this.

3.  A new, politically driven, worry has now also popped up, that is too ambiguous to even know how to deal with at the moment.  With the new political shut-down development causing a 10% reduction in airline flights..... and with my having had long-term plans to travel to and present research at a conference in California..... with plans to leave late next week..... I am in an awful conundrum:

    a.  I have no idea YET if my flights will be affected/cancelled/altered on the trip TO the conference.

    b.  I have even WORSE worry about if my RETURN flights will be affected/cancelled/altered on my return HOME from the conference.  

The issues related to the above concerns are i) my travel times are quite TIGHT for layover flights in both directions, and delays may make me miss connecting flights, ii) the number of days I have for the conference WITHOUT impacting my U work are also tight.... and I am fearful that if there are problems on the RETURN flights, I may have issues relating to classes and other work at the U, iii) as the way these things work.... I have to pay up front for conference registration, flights, hotel accommodations out-of-pocket.... and then submit receipts for reimbursement from my grant funds after the fact.  But, if ultimately flights are cancelled (or worse, very delayed), and hotel accommodations are not used or incompletely used (by delay), it may be financially impactful as well.  The conference block of accommodations had a cancellation cut-off of about 1 month ago.  I have no idea if/how I may be stuck for costs and fees if I have delayed or cancelled flights for the hotel accommodations.  I have no idea how delayed flights/cancelled flights may play out either.... may I get refunds or only ticket vouchers?  And, depending on how all the above works out.... this determines what I may or may not be able to submit for actual reimbursement from my grants.  I cannot seek reimbursement from my grants for days I am not using a hotel even if I am unable to stay there if there are delays and I may still be on the hook for paying for them.  The same is also true about the flight costs.... if I were to be given vouchers but the conference is not attended, I am not able to be reimbursed for the flights... and instead have to eat the costs.  It is all very worrisome and disconcerting.  

So, there are many items I am trying to figure out besides my NORMAL U work and at the same time try to have some semblance of a non-work life.  It is keeping me rather exhausted, and I am still recovering from my laryngitis to a degree.  

Thursday and Friday of this week were very busy with trying to catch-up on things that had been displaced/delayed due to the peak of my illness and the destruction of my phone, but on Thursday, I forced myself to go to the Retiree's Cigar Group.  Unfortunately, it was not particularly successful.  I was rather too keyed-up about "things I should be doing" and about the new on that day announcements about the impending 10% flight reductions to actually be able to successfully work myself into the state of relaxation at the Retiree's Cigar Group that I had such a desire to obtain.  I still felt edgy and worried when I eventually left, and my mind did not feel any real sense of relaxation.  

During a few days during the prior week when I was exceptionally sick with the laryngitis and when my phone was initially destroyed, I DID NOT run.  For better or worse I could not muster up the ability to force myself to do so.  But, during this week, I have forced myself back into the regular running even as I was still recovering and still dealing with the phone.  I am not sure if running was helpful or not.  But, I am at least relieved I did it.  But, it was not able to help  me reduce the feelings of stress.  

PipeTobacco

Damn Fruit

I am still working many long hours with the fruit people to try to get the replacement phone functional and up to snuff.  Unfortunately, for reasons I do not understand, but likely due to what the vehicle did that ran over my phone, while the apps I had are still in the fruit cloud they each need to be individually downloaded again by me and I have to re-log in officially with each one which requires whatever the password was previously.  So, in effect, for all these apps, I have go through each apps method of password recovery and resetting.  It is extremely time consuming.  And, while my contacts did return BY PHONE NUMBER, the name of who belongs to that phone number did NOT return.  This too is a nightmare in terms of trying to figure out who folks are related to these numbers, and it will likely be something I am working through for the next week or more.

It is not enjoyable.  Slowly, however, I am getting (I hope) things back into some order of some sort.

PipeTobacco

All Sorts of Hurdles

Unfortunately, getting and reactivating a replacement phone has more hurdles than I could ever imagine.  My wife chose for us the style of phone.... long, long ago, that is named after a piece of fruit.  This company puts a huge number of blockages in the way of being able to fix a situation like mine.  A few of these:

1.  My "fruit ID".  Probably because I am old, I do not constantly mess around with and fuss with my phone.  I do not constantly search for new and better apps, nor do I visit the fruit app store unless I have to, nor do I find it jolly good fun to search around all things "fruit" and fuss and mess around.  So, inadvertently, some time over the last decade or so, I probably had to change the password to get some sort of app for authentication.  But, unfortunately, I had no damn idea what that new password was. So, I had to go through a "new password" algorithm since the destroyed phone could not receive texts from the fruit store.  This meant the fruit store put me in "lockdown" for 5 days while they investigated things and I could not do anything.

2.  At midnight yesterday, the fruit store sent me a text telling me to change my password.  Which I did, immediately.

3.   I have been on the U phone all day, now trying to get ready for activating the new phone when it eventually arrives.  

That is about all I can write at the moment.

PipeTobacco

Just the Facts

After my last post, last week.... I ran into several troubling items.  I am just listing the facts here, as I do not have the energy to try to describe things.  As the week progresses, I will likely expand more.... unless I end up finding it easier to simply try to forget these items and "move on":

1.  My "ill feelings" that I thought were from my vaccines apparently were not from the vaccines (or at least MOST of the "ill feelings" were not from the vaccines). I must have caught the local "bug" that has been all over the place at the U within a day or two before getting the vaccines. I was hugely ill all last week from the time I wrote my last post.  Besides fever/sweats/chills being rampant, I had a sore throat that was not bad, but it caused unstoppable fits of coughing... while trying to sleep.  I could not lay flat, and most of the rest of the week I was downstairs sitting upright and not sleeping much if at all (I do not seem to have much ability to sleep sitting upright).  The worst of it was the most horrendous case of laryngitis I have ever experienced.  I could not speak at all until just a little bit Saturday night.  

2.  The laryngitis destroyed much of my ability to teach Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.  I was beyond sick and sore and ill, but I struggled through TRYING to teach as best as I could but it was not very good at all.  

3.  On Wednesday, I went to the doctor and was prescribed an antibiotic and two other medicines to help reduce night coughing and to try to quell the laryngitis.  

4  But, on the way home, I stopped to by myself a Diet Dr. Pepper fountain drink to try to sooth my throat.  The absolute IDIOT that I am, I stupidly put my phone on top of my car as I navigated around to put the drink into the cup holder.  I drove off.  A ways away, I heard some chatter on my roof and saw my phone fly off the back through the rear view mirror.  I stopped as quickly as I could and went back.

5.  But, unfortunately the phone had been run over by another vehicle and was destroyed.

6.  It has been a nightmare ever since at the U as the U has "multifactor authentication" to access ANY computer or ANY electronic door lock. Multifactor Authenication is set up with a person's PHONE to be a second, third, or fourth tool in identifying a person before you are granted access.  I no longer had a phone and could not get anywhere or do anything.

7.  Trying to work with IT on campus on a regular telephone was nearly impossible with my laryngitis. They could not hear/understand me.  I had no stamina, no energy.  

8.  I had to do more running around to get permissions and jury-rigged work arounds all the rest of the week, and I was so, so very sick at the same time.  But, I could not access anything, even from home that was U related without the "Multifactor Authentication".  

9.  The whole situation emotionally took its toll on me.  At this point, I do not want to even try to write about my feelings during the last several days.  Just suffice it to say they were not good. 

10.  From the insurance claims, I MIGHT have a replacement phone by Tuesday.  But who knows?  

The above sounds so stupid and so foolish.  And, I know and understand that these are things that can happen.  But, when they are added onto the already extreme stress I have been experiencing the last two months or so.... it felt more than I could bear.  

I am more settled and resigned today, and being able to talk a bit (quietly) has also helped.  But, even though it seems stupid, and simply "just things that happened", they really threw me for a loop.  I should be able to "laugh" at these stupid things, perhaps.  And, perhaps that is so.  But, the above things crushed me. 

That is about it for now.  Going back to just trying to fix all the messes that have arisen from this.

If the phone issue can be fixed tomorrow, perhaps I will be able to swing back up.

PipeTobacco  

Long Time Gone

I am feeling rather "out of sync" in many ways.  Perhaps it is a sign of being old.  Perhaps it is a sign of not always being "gun-ho" and "accepting" of everything changing all the damn time.  Perhaps it is just the exhaustion of my body as I try to continue to teach while having laryngitis.  I do not know. But here are some thoughts I have been having:

• My title to this post was based upon my feeling lost in the modern day in many ways.  Things seem too chaotic, too mindlessly frenetic.  I feel old.  While sleeping a lot this past weekend, I alternated between listing to classical music on NPR, jazz music on NPR, and listening to my C, S, N, & Y channel on Pandora.  The song, Long Time Gone by C, S, & N (no Y) spoke to me. 
• Halloween is quickly approaching.  I do not really like Halloween anymore.  For me, the Halloween demeanor has gotten too grotesque and morbid.  I do not enjoy the gore, the extreme and realistic imagery of blood & guts, or of zombies, or even the morbid, very realistic skeletons etc.  It feels, I do not know.... perhaps disrespectful is the best word I can think of.  Disrespectful to the dead, disrespectful to life.  I do not really understand what I am feeling.  I just know that it feels too much.
• When I was young, Halloween seemed more FESTIVE and not so sinister.  Of course there were "ghosts" but they were rather silly and cute. There were jack-o-lanterns, and black cats, and candy.  Kids dressed as all sorts of things.... cowboys, princesses, super heros, etc.  I do not really remember anyone who had a truly gory costume.  

No longer popular, too, is much of the candy I remember as a kid.  It is not often I see the old staples of "Boston Baked Beans" or "Burnt Peanuts" nor "Zero" candy bars or "Mallocups" or "Necos".  Fortunately, every once in a while I can stumble across one or more of the above, usually in a dusty corner of a dollar store, and it brings back a flood of memories.  The one candy I remember being so common as a candy when I was young was the "Bun" like shown above.  I especially liked getting a Maple one, but was also happy with the vanilla.  It was always a wonderfully sweet treat.  The above candies were ESPECIALLY fun as they differed from the norm (aka Hershey's Snickers, etc).... but they also were unique and tasty and profoundly abundant at Halloween.  

PipeTobacco

Laid Out Flat

 

I so desire communication here, so I am writing.  But I have basically been "laid out flat" since Friday.

Briefly:

• Thursday at the Retiree's Cigar Group was "nice" but I did not get the full relaxation and enjoyment from the afternoon because I was feeling keyed up because my usual Friday is that it is an unstructured day where I can do a helluva lot of writing, grading, and preparing of things for the next week.  But, last Friday I was (very unfortunately) committed to attend an all-damn-day, "educationese" conference at the U.  At the Retiree's Cigar Group, instead of relaxing and enjoying, a sizable chunk of my mind kept whirring on about how to try to get all the sh*t I needed to get done on Friday... done.  
• I worked diligently on my computer Thursday night (again instead of relaxing) to try to get some things done for the next week.  I finally went to bed ~2:00am.
• I ran OUTSIDE to get running earlier than the indoor track would open so I could get to the U earlier than usual so I could spend time in the lab before the damnable "educationese" nonsense started.
• I skipped out of both the "breakfast" meal and the "lunch" meal at the "educationaese" nonsense so I could rush back to my building and talk and work briefly with my research students
• But, I never got caught up.
• My wife and I had a late afternoon appointment to get our flu and covid vaccines.  We did this.
• And.... as in other years, I ended up being LAID OUT FLAT by the vaccines.  I experienced chills/sweats, strong body-wide joint aches, muscle fatigue, a headache, and lots of mucous..... and the symptoms felt stronger than other years, perhaps due to changes to the vaccine.
• I did not move from the bed, other than to go to the bathroom, all day Saturday.
• By Sunday afternoon, I had symptoms lessen somewhat, so I thought all things would be fine and back up to snuff on Monday.... but no, I also started to lose my voice Sunday afternoon.
• I have had laryngitis both Monday and Today (Tuesday).  Monday I powered through as best as I could.... but that probably made the outcome today, where I can barely talk in any regard.  A professor who cannot talk feels awfully damn useless.

I am still feeling awfully behind.  I got a scientific poster one of my researchers is going to present at a conference this weekend.... to the U's graphics center later than I should have because of the crap on Friday.... so I am also nervous if they will be able to get the damn thing printed in time for the student to head out of state. 

I just want to sleep, and I want to sleep to get well. But too many things are pulling at me. I am utterly exhausted.

PipeTobacco

Do Not

I am trying to scribble these thoughts down before I head to class:

Do not get me wrong.... I greatly, greatly appreciate, enjoy, and relish going to the Retiree's Cigar Group. It is the one especially peaceful, quieting (mentally), yet raucous (filled with joking and laughter) thing I get to do each week.  I look forward to it every week.  I look forward to going tomorrow!  

But.... it is NOT a pipe.

But.... also do not get me wrong..... I enjoy indulging in a cigar at the Retiree's Cigar Group. It is fun.  The cigar does add to the peaceful, quieting, yet invigorating feelings of the event.

But... it is NOT a pipe.

I do not "crave" a cigar. I have never actually “craved” having a cigar.

I DO crave my pipes and pipe tobaccos.  Every day.  Every day,  I still have a longing to have one.  Every day.

It does undulate some.  That was the whole purpose of my PCS my "pipe craving score" that I had done relatively faithfully for a spell.  With the "zero" to "ten" scale, I can say I do not believe I have ever reported or felt a ZERO.  Never.  

This week the PCS has screeched upward with a tremendously sharp incline. Whether it is the Fall temperatures reminding me of the beauty of the many pipe tobaccos in my various stashes, or perhaps a neural circuit was fired as a suggestion of how to cope from this weekend's hardships, or perhaps the melancholy of my thoughts of my dog have re-ushered into my memories how for so many YEARS it had been my norm to sit out there on the back porch with her, my pipe in hand as I observed the day.   

Regardless.... the desire, the yearning, the "craving" now is damn near a PCS of 10.  I would say it is at 9.5.  

A pipe is a pipe and is not a cigar.

I do not UNDERSTAND the difference.  BUT, it is real, it is true.  I have KNOWLEDGE of the difference.  But, no understanding.

PipeTobacco