Hi [Morra].
All is well here. I just got back in from shoveling, and I have to go out again as soon as I warm up. Looks like we have at least a foot, though not quite two feet. However, some drifts in the back yard are three feet tall (up to my hips). So I’m not sure how much we got. But the road out front is still all white — no asphalt showing. So I bet we at least got 15 inches.
Dear [Mentat],
[Emmy] and I are unsure if we’re attending camp Beacon Lodge this year. With so much unhealthy food and refined carbs there, and so little good stuff around, it’s all too easy to pack on the pounds, and all too hard to get them off again afterwards. We’ve found that it can take months after camp ends, to re establish the good eating practices we had before going. In fact, we’re still recovering from last summer. But we’ll know for sure if we’re going by the time the camp papers come out in February.
We’ll probably be there; as long as we can devise a way to bring plenty of our own preferred foods with us. It’d be pretty hard not to attend, knowing that so many of our friends are going. Since that’s the only time we get to see most of them, I expect that we’ll put aside our health concerns, and go. We’ll see.
Dear [Mentat],
Yes, I heard about Meckler’passing (details here), and yes, I knew him pretty well back in the 80s. I used to visit him and Deb when they lived at Moorhead, and we’d watch Hawaii-Five-0 on Sunday nights.
Yep, Deb was on the heavy, as well as the unhealthy side – she had many medical issues, even in her younger years.
So, you want to make significant changes to your diet in the new year? Feeling a little heavy, ‘eh? Well, Changing life patterns involving food is, yes, much harder than with things that you can completely abolish without negative nutritional consequence, such as snuff or alcohol. While complete cessation works best with the pure vices, it’s only marginally effective with ubiquitous foods; particularly when custom and people too, constantly campaign to get you to eat what you’d rather not. Also the challenge grows in light of the idea that sugary and fatty items were often given to us as very young and impressionable children, as reward for good behavior, not to mention the notion that we’re somewhat pre-programmed to desire sweet and salty foods. Those lacking this longing often didn’t survive in the wild in past generations. So, not only did evolution program us to desire these foods, but we were taught to want them as well. Double whammy!
Besides, your situation is further complicated by your girlfriend’s relationship with food; she may make it difficult for you to eat well when she offers you junk. Being that someone with whom we are fond can have great influence over our desires, you’ll probably find it difficult to stay on the straight and narrow if she’s baking you cakes, buying you candy, and so on. If you’re going to maintain your resolve to eat better in the new year, then she and you will probably have to extensively negotiate, so that she does not inadvertently (or intentionally) sabotage your efforts.
Yes, I’ve begun several successful weight-loss efforts in January, in years past.
As I implied earlier, completely giving up “the bad foods” all at once is probably not a good goal. In my experience, I had to work into it over years because, especially when it comes to rituals surrounding the consumption of food, humans are indeed, quite the creatures of habit. We want what we want, and this cannot easily be changed. But I don’t buy the idea that a little sugar is as addictive as a lot of it. While it is the case that the more of it you eat, the more you want, the reverse is also true. That is: The less you eat, the less you want. Now in an ideal world, yes, the absolute best approach would be to ban refined carbs like added sugar from your lips altogether. But you’ll be hard pressed to maintain this stand if you run in social circles where people consume it. In my humble opinion, sugar addiction cannot be beaten by going cold-turkey. As an intermediate step to quitting it, try using less of it, for sure. But also check out the unbleached, organic sugars. These are as sweet as traditional sugar, but are not quite as addictive because they give you fewer empty calories. Also, that sweetener, Splenda, tastes almost exactly like sugar. But it has zero calories. Try this, or stevia, in your tea and on your cereal.
Good luck in your efforts.
Are you at home now?
Dear siblings,
Yes, Diane and I stopped in to see Mom this morning. They moved her to room 201 temporarily, to give her relief from the TV. I can’t blame her for her dismay over that constant noise; I’d want to get out of there too, ASAP. 
It’s especially irritating when there’s technology (like ear buds, Bluetooth, and the like. Duh!) that patients could use when viewing television so that they don’t disturb their roommates. In fact, the TV in Mom’s room has a headphone jack. But, *sigh*, they’re not using it. I did offer Mom some great earplugs to try. But she declined.
However, back to the foot: We noticed a red mark just above her right big toe today, which Diane covered with that fake skin stuff. The absence of swelling may explain some of the differences in the foot shape that we’ve seen lately.
Sister Mary Ann did talk to Mom’s doctors this morning, and they tell us to expect some changes in foot shape during the healing process. These changes are normal, they say, and are no cause for alarm.
8:43 PM: Talked with Mom. Sounded like I woke her from a deep sleep. She’s still sick in her stomach, and was feeling particularly woozy because she had just taken her night pills. She said she’d call me tomorrow, when she feels better.
Tom
I just published a new post about last weekend’s foot party. Click here to see it. Enjoy.
Tom Hesley
I was telling the blind chat group about [Emmy]‘s blindness and her problems coping with it as follows:
There’s no cure for [Emmy] either. They removed both of her eyes over a decade ago. She’s working hard at accepting it. But like someone else here said, it’s going to take more time. I’ve advised her to read everything she can about coping with the hope that perhaps she’d stumble across a way of understanding this whole mess, that would push her toward greater acceptance of her situation. She doesn’t like reading much though, but I’m working on that with her too.
So, the Victor Reader Stream has no internal clock?
While browsing my $VRNotes directory, I found that the 3gp files crated when you record notes have none of the Last Access, Last Created, or Last Modified timestamps set. This is a pain because I have to remember to say the date and time of each new journal entry I record so that when I later rename those notes files (00001.3gp, 00002.3gp, and so on) to names that facilitate sorting by date, I have to copy the files to my PC, then listen to each of the original ones (still on the Stream), rename the PC copies, and finally, copy the renamed files back to the Stream. Seems like a lot of work just to keep usefully named files archived.
Can these timestamps be enabled in Stream 3.0?
[I posted this to the Portable Player list, and learned the following: The Victor Reader Stream has no internal clock, and so therefore cannot timestamp the files it creates when recording notes with it. Then, I gripe a little.]
Yes, that’s what I thought. Strange though, because so many digital devices these days have a clock. Even the iPods have one. Oh well. Thanks.
[Perhaps in the next generation of the Victor Reader Stream, they'll include an internal clock and add timestamping of the Stream-created files.]
[Tad],
In the past few years, [First Love] [has] been into several ventures.
Apparently, her and [Zacca] are distributors for Herbalife natural weight loss products.
She also has a mortgage investment company [...].
She’s joined the South Hills Chamber of Commerce last year. Wow.
Also, looks like her and [Zacca] are still selling low-vision equipment, at least, on a limited scale.
[...]
Thought you’d find that interesting. Maybe [Morra] could get a Job at [their company].
[Mentat],
There’s a list that I’m active on, which discusses iPods at length — especially the new 4th generation talking iPod. See the link below if interested: http://www.freelists.org/archive/blindipod
Also, there’s a podcast episode that demonstrates the talking iPod. It’s located at: http://www.hartgen.org/02-nano.mp3
Enjoy,
Tom
There is also the possibility that if you have your iTunes library stored on an external drive, and then you plug another removable drive into your computer, such as a Victor Reader Stream for example, the drive letter to your music may change without you realizing it.
Try verifying that the drive letter has not changed since you imported your music.
Tom Hesley