Tom's Diary

09:25 AM: I woke up to a gray and snowy day, and we actually have some accumulation out there; probably about an inch so far.  I’ll have to get dressed and sweep off Mom’s wheelchair ramp. 

10:00 AM: Wrote in my new   Sleep Diary,   here in the   Tom’s Diary   blog.

11:25 AM: Listened to  Today’s Repeater Song   a bunch more times.  I love it! 

12:15 PM: Swept and shoveled the ramp and sidewalk.  Looks like we got a couple inches of snow out there at the moment.

01:50 PM: Posted the   Bag Tie Invasion   piece in this, the   Tom’s Diary   blog.

02:30 PM: As reward to myself for completing the   Bag Tie Invasion   post, I listened to   Today’s Repeater Song   again, around ten times.     Seriously.

02:55 PM: Shoveled and salted the ramp and sidewalks again, as around a half-inch of new snow accumulated since I last cleared the walkways, at around noon. 

03:55 PM: Posted the   Damp Attic: 2009-12-05   piece.  So to reward myself for this achievement, I think I’ll take a nap.    See you in a bit.

04:55 PM: I’m back up, out of bed, although I didn’t sleep at all, really; just rested my eyes. 

07:00 PM: Worked the   Christmas Lighting, 2009   project.  Fixed two more dim strings of lights. 

07:05 PM: Worked the   Christmas Lighting, 2009   project.  See today’s comments   there   for more details.  I repaired two nother dim LED strings outside.

08:00 PM: Just finished categorizing 50 more posts in this, the   Tom’s Diary   blog.  Starting the weekly system backups now.

09:10 PM: Completed the weekly site backups.  Details   here. 

10:10 PM: Just posted the list of added and / or revised posts for today,   here. 

10:40 PM: Talked with [Emmy].

11:50 PM: Watched yesterday’s episode of   The Young and the Restless   on the DVR.

02:45 AM: Just finished categorizing 50 more posts in this, the   Tom’s Diary   blog.  Only 700 more to go.

02:50 AM: Well, it’s been a very full day and I’m dragging, big time right now.  So I’m headed for the hay.  Take care, folks, and I’ll see you back here in a while.

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Bag Tie Invasion
• Christmas Lighting, 2009
• Damp Attic: 2009-12-05
• Mom’s Status: 2009-12-05
• Post Revisions: 2009-12-05
• Repeater Song: 2009-12-05
• Sleep Diary: 2009-12-05
• Weekly Backups: 2009-12-05

Today, I either added or modified the following posts in this, the   Tom’s Diary    blog for improved brevity, clarity, categorization, appearance, indexing, and search-ability:

Tom Hesley

Weekly backups of all my blog sites completed. Total disk space backed up: 39.7 MB, which includes all databases, site code, and static pages. That’s an increase of 1000 KB, from 38.7 MB last week.  The growth continues…

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Today’s Business: 2009-12-05

A few days ago, sister Jojo noted that all the boxes in the attic had a damp, not quite bone-dry feel to them.  So I went in to check it out and yes indeed, the sole window there was soaked, and I found signs of fresh mildew on the rafters as well.  Of course, after having experienced this same situation last year, I knew immediately that the ”tropical climate” this time, had been triggered by a combination of two facts:

1. The vent-less gas heaters in the basement have been operating for a month now;
2. Plus, the attic exhaust fan had not been used since the last time the temperature in there rose above 85 degrees; probably sometime in early October.

But without the exhaust fan running, the humid air from those heaters below, makes its way up through the first floor of the house here, and then builds up just underneath the roof on the second floor.  Without the fan pushing it out, the vapor has no place to escape.  So it hovers there, in the attic, and then when the temperature outside plummets to the low thirties and upper twenties, everything cools in this unheated space to roughly match that temperature.  So then,  excessive condensation occurs as that trapped moist and warm air contacts the now-chilly items there, and turns into water; drenching  just about everything in this gable-roofed room; support structure and contents alike. 

As was the case last year,   the solution is to run the exhaust fan.  Doing so for the past couple days has dried everything out nicely, and it appears that all signs of further mildew incursions have disappeared also.  In fact, to ensure that everything stayed dry last year, I just operated the fan full-time, throughout the entire winter.  So that’s what I’ll do this winter too.

Now I’ve been meaning to purchase a humidistat for the fan, that would turn it on automatically at the first hints of unduly moist air around it.  These devices cost roughly $50, which is not too bad.  But I’ve just been putting off the purchase for who knows what reason.  It isn’t as though I can’t afford it.  So I promise: I will get to it sometime in 2010. 

Readers: Hold me to that. 

Tom Hesley 

Related Posts

• Other Home Maintenance Posts
• Today’s Business: 2009-12-05

Almost daily, I stroll around the entire property here at least once, picking up and putting away things that I should have stowed right after I was done using them.  But I tend to be flighty and fickle when it comes to planning my day.  That is to say, I often don’t see efforts to their absolute conclusion before moving on to others.  Once a particular problem has been resolved, I’m all too eager to start fixing the next one; never mind the cleaning up after the last one.  Once the problem is solved, the tidying-up afterwards takes on a very low priority, and so quite often, does not get done.

Such is the case with the little projects embodied by the   Christmas Lighting, 2009   project.  As I performed my cleanup watchman duties today, as has been true often in recent months, I repeatedly found these pesky little   bag ties   lying around.  They consist of a thin and flexible metal wire, that is tyically between two and six inches long, and is encased in either plastic, rubber, or paper of every color in the rainbow.  They’re used to hold closed the open ends of plastic bags of all sorts.  Or, you often find the longer ones neatly and tightly securing power cords in newly purchased appliances, extension cords, and the wires in holiday light sets. 

But no matter how many I retrieve on one day, I spot more the next day.  Every time I think I’ve got them all gathered up, I find new ones on the floor, where they frequently clog my Kirby vacuum cleaner, which I then must partly disassemble to clear, once it begins its doleful cacophony of clicks, pops, squeals, and snaps.  These twisty ties show up behind the cushions in chairs and couches; places where I must have sat while tearing into new boxes of Christmas lights, or a new crock pot, or something.    I find them in the washer tub near the agitator, because at one point, I must have put some of them in my pocket, and then washed those pants without removing them first.  So sometimes, I feel like I’m under siege, caught up and subdued in a   bag tie invasion.

I must have around five Zip Loc bags full of the ties; one in the bedroom, two here in the office, and a few more scattered around the kitchen and cellar.  But how much would you bet that when it’s time to put the Christmas lights away, and wrap up all the extension cords, that I won’t be able to find a single tie?  It seems as though the troups invading my floor space scurry away when I need them for more practical purposes than clogging my Kirby.  This has happened in years past, and I’m sure it will indeed happen again. But I hope such occurrences will be reduced, with all the attention I’ve been devoting lately to the   Household Organization, 2009   project.  We’ll see how it goes this year.

Hopefully this time, I’ll have better luck locating the real ties, because when I can’t find them, I must resort to using the following effective but kludgy improvisations:

• pieces of solder,
• copper wire,
• nylon latch bands,
• rubber bands,
• electrical tape,
• narrow cloth strips cut from old towels and clothing,
• and pieces of twine

to bundle each set of lights into its own separately-manageable, clump-like unit.  We must bind them to prevent tangling with other sets nearby in the totes where they patiently await December, throughout the rest of the year.  Indeed, I’m amazed every November when I get them out, at how many of these   improvised tie devices   (ITDs) I created the  previous January, when I last stored the lights. But this year, my goal is to avoid having to cut more solder or wire, or tear up any more shirts, or waste anymore tape, just to make these ITDs.  Nope, no more ITDs, which would be a nice testament to the effectiveness of the   Household Organization, 2009   effort.  The fewer the ITDs used, the better the organizational efforts are working. 

Take care.

Tom Hesley 

 Related Posts

• Christmas Lighting, 2009
• Household Organization, 2009

09:45 AM: Dispensed Mom’s morning meds.

11:00 AM: Blood sugar: 274.  Covered with 14 units of log insulin.  The reading may be high due to a bladder infection she thinks may have started within the past couple days.  She’ll be staring an anti-biodic today to cure this. 

02:40 PM: Blood sugar: 187.  Covered with 12 units of log insulin.  She says she’s not eaten anything since the last reading.  So either she’s still assimilating all the carbs she ate this past Thursday night at Chili’s, or this bladder infection is elevating her readings.  So, while she has the infection, I’ll try getting readings every three hours instead of every four, until we start getting consistently good values (below 150).

05:35 PM: Dispensed Mom’s evening meds.

05:55 PM: Blood sugar: 147.  Covered with 6 units of log insulin.

06:10 PM: Sister Jojo is taking Mom to see her daughters perform at a theater in Altoona.  So, I’m all by myself this evening.  I’m getting the break I needed. 

11:00 PM: Mom just got back home, saying that she had a great time at the performance. 

11:30 PM: Blood sugar: 271.  Covered with 16 units of log insulin.  I softly but firmly scolded her for not taking her insulin when she ate out earlier.  She wants to blame the infection, and that would be all well and good, and even valid if she had followed exactly what she needs to do; which is to say: She needs to give herself insulin each and every blazin’ time she eats. But, …,  *sigh*, …  Sometimes I wonder why I even bother.  I think I want her to be healthy more than she wants this herself.

11:35 PM: Dispensed Mom’s night time meds.

Tom Hesley 

Related Posts

• Other Blood Sugar Readings
• Today’s Business: 2009-12-05

09:48 AM: Slept great all night last night; woke up not once between 2:00 AM and 9:10 AM.  So given the high number of times that I’ve repeated this experiment, and gotten the same results, I believe that “conventional wisdom” is right in this particular case.  Common knowledge says not to eat within a few hours of bedtime in order to reduce how often we awaken during the night.  Well, for me this turns out to be indeed true; when I consume lots of heavier foods too soon before bedtime, I’ll almost certainly experience broken sleep that night.  Eating less, later in the day, I’ve found, promotes less broken and thus, more healthful and rejuvenating sleep. 

I’ve heard too, that depression can cause insomnia, though I’ve not been able to definitively demonstrate this in my own life.  Mostly, when I wake up prematurely, it appears not to be caused by any sad or otherwise bad moods I’m having, though I have observed, especially while working in corporate America, that lots of stress can interfere with sleep routines.  Usually though, when I can’t stay asleep, an examination of the previous day’s food diary and times that I ate reveals the strong correlation between how well I sleep and how much I eat.  Under certain conditions, these two concepts are inversely related; especially once my daily calorie intake goes above around 1500.  In that case, the more I eat beyond that, then the less well I’ll sleep. 

But, when I’m dieting, and my total calorie intake hovers around 1000 or less, then it seems to matter less what time of the day I eat, for even if I ingest immediately before bed, I’ll stil sleep well; particularly if I’ve been dieting for at least a few days prior to this.

I’ve also come to understand that I sleep best in a cooler bedroom (with the temperature set at around 65 degrees).  When it’s much hotter than 68 degrees, my sleep again, becomes erratic. 

Tom Hesley 

Related Posts

• Today’s Business: 2009-12-05