Tag Archives: coping

Fear And Loathing In The Driver’s Seat

OK, just to be clear: I am NOT a Luddite. I happen to like a lot of what passes as technology these days. I had a picture of an “etch-a-stone” with the caption “to show the grand-kids what we played with when we were young. It was a piece of granite with a chisel and hammer in a plastic frame. I enjoy having electricity (less so on the 21st of the month when the bill is due) and eating food that is caught and cleaned for me. And (perhaps the most important element of all time ) PLEASE don’t take my spell checker away (although the grammar checker is over rated). But there are limits to my credibility and tolerance for making life “easier” unnecessarily.

My most vehement protest involves the movement to make driving a car “safer” by making it (the car, that is) more intelligent. Frankly, I think this will ultimately prove to be a bad idea, because there will be the inevitable corollary that the driver will become more stupid. I am not sure how this is possible in many (perhaps most) cases but I continue to be amazed at human ingenuity, so I’m pretty sure people will figure something out. I am convinced that global intelligence is a constant…

A perfect example is the movement by car makers to include high(er) tech gadgets to “improve the driving experience.” In Michigan, it is against the law to text on your phone or tablet while driving. So why does the car designers think installing a tablet as the primary device controller will be a good idea? In every single car I have ever owned I could control the radio, heater and air-conditioner, lights and wipers by feel (usually within a couple of hours of driving). I never had to take my eyes from the road to turn the radio to another station after turning the defrosters on. Each device has its own knob or slider switch that was in a fixed position and had a specific shape. I worked by feel. “Advanced” cars have a single interactive touch display to handle navigation, entertainment, climate control, and personal communication. All at the touch/swipe of the screen. In the dark without looking, ALL controls feel exactly the same…like the surface of the mirror over my bathroom sink. I must look at the dashboard to see which icon I need to touch to bring up another screen with additional controls. Will someone please tell me HOW (and WHY) this is a good idea?

Even more scary in the long run is the intrinsic intelligence that is being added to high-end vehicles (and will eventually trickle down to the rest of the market). The cars of tomorrow (later today, actually) have sensors that look out for and announce if there is a car in your blind spot, if you are drifting out of your lane, even apply the brakes automatically if you don’t react in time to avoid an accident with an obstruction in front of your car. (In fairness, the rear-view camera is a pretty good idea as even with the best of mirrors it can be hard to see directly behind your vehicle, and the self-parallel parking car feature in a couple of models is a feature I would engage in a heart beat…I haven’t parallel parked by car in several years unless I could pull in at either end. I would rather walk several blocks than risk a stress-induced heart attack.)

Ultimately, the end result of making the car safer and easier to drive is for drivers to become less attentive and more distracted than they already are. The last thing we need is drivers paying less attention to their surroundings and other vehicles than are out here already. As a former biker and truck driver you come to realize that you need to drive every car on the road, not just yours. You really have to exercise defensive driving when you are either driving a bomb (propane truck) or are surrounded by nature rather than several thousand pounds of metal (motorcycle and bicycle). You have to anticipate the actions of everyone else around you and prepare to take evasive actions at a moments notice. (From experience, I would rather drive behind a drunk driver than one possessing a cell phone. At least I can predict what the reaction of the drunk will be…a distracted phone user is totally random.)

Now the last and ultimate direction this will go is the vehicle that you don’t have to drive at all. Google is working on self-driving cars that will be able (?) to compete with human-directed missiles. I have serious doubts about the wisdom of this as I currently live in one of the most dangerous locales on the planet. I have seen more vehicles run red lights here in [REDACTED] than driving in vastly larger metropolitan cities like Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, and San Francisco/Oakland. Waiting less than 5 seconds after the light changes to green in your direction is a modern form of Russian Roulette. To place enough computational power in a car to safely transit our roads without an organic brain in control seems highly unlikely anytime soon (say, in MY lifetime…or what is left of it). And besides, Google is too late, anyway. They already make vehicles you don’t have to drive.

They are called taxi’s.

Phred

post 35 of n

March Madness Continues

My aversion to basketball just got worse over the last hour. The brackets are official and everything sports for the rest of the month will be “sweet 16” this and “final four” that. I was able to watch a hockey game (my Red Wings won) and took a nap. when I awoke, it was too late.

I am tempted to just make a truly random bracket (using a coin or die) and submit it to the local pool. Then, if (when, hahaha) i win I can show the video of my method… and maybe they will come up with a better way of spending a month on sports television programming.

WSOP anyone?

Phred

post 32 of n

Birthday Candle Induced COPD

Birthday celebrations carry different levels of significance depending on your age. When you are celebrating your first one, you couldn’t care less. You have no idea why today is any different than yesterday. Mom and Dad are making a big fuss, as are almost everyone else in the room (an older sibling might be “fitching a pit” because they are not getting enough attention, but this, too, will pass). B-day 2 is slightly more important, probably because of the lead up excitement tends to carry over. You will have developed some understanding of the patterns of life and might notice today is different somehow. And there’s cake. Then you go to bed and life continues pretty much as before.

The bar gets set higher each year for the next half dozen or so, then seems to level out. Oh, it’s a great day, your B-day, but now it’s not necessarily the high point of your year (late December takes center stage) or the single focus point it might have been before. Other holidays are recognized and anticipated (the spring and fall candy festivals rank highly with people under the age of majority).

Over time, as the calendars pile up on the closet floor, other mileposts loom in the distance. You become “old enough to…” do various things. Drive a car, get a job, get a “friend” (rather than a buddy). Eventually you can drink, vote, and get drafted (not so much now, but a VERY frightening area of growing up during the ’60’s and ’70’s).

But eventually, you hit a plateau, where adding another notch on the belt of life is pretty much just another day (however, one with cake and ice cream). You don’t generally get any substantial benefits from what you had the day before (some restaurants will discount your meal based on your age, but a 1% additional reduction won’t cover the taxes for the meal). And there become certain milestone numbers that actual have additional stress attached (more emotional than rational, but for adult males the first doctor’s appointment after the big 5-0 has “thrills” that can be unnerving to contemplate). Decade numbers (30, 40, 50, …) are all mental triggers you are indeed getting old(er). For some, that is unsettling at best.  Some simply choose to deny or ignore the numbers as they get larger.

I was at a friend’s forty-first (it is less stressful to see it written this way than to just put “41” out there) birthday party. There was around twenty people around and we sat and enjoyed stories and talk (and the mandatory cake and ice cream). Overall it went well, but there was a comment made that really brought us back to reality. Someone mentioned that we didn’t do the same things we had a couple of years ago (might have been referencing a bowling event following the C&IC segment). As the night wore on people excused themselves to depart for home, and eventually the celebrant also departed for home and bed. The end of the event sort of fizzled out and ended with more of a whimper than a bang.

In fairness, there are children tangentially involved that were not “present” during earlier celebrations (I still have one of the “It’s a Boy” cigars as proof) so dad can be exonerated for seeking an opportunity to catch a few additional moments of shut eye. And gravity has increased (continues to grow larger with each passing year) while the length of each day grows shorter over time (while there is about the same amount of light in each day as when I was a kid, they don’t put anywhere as much dark in the nights anymore… just look at the bags under my eyes). So a (more) sedate party should not come as a surprise anymore.

I’m just not looking forward to the pit stops during the upcoming wheelchair races in the (hopefully distant) future.

Phred

post 28 of n

Interest Withdrawl From My Account At Daylight Savings

This Sunday is one of my two least favorite days of the year*. At 0200 (2:00 AM) my part of the world shifts to “Daylight Saving Time” and the clocks leap a full hour ahead (a perverse form of time travel with no perceivable benefit). This means I lose an hour of sleep and a great deal of value in my various “Emotional Savings Accounts” with others as it usually takes a couple of weeks before my anger and aggravation drops to near-normal levels.

I don’t remember exactly when the shift first began in my experience (the Wiki entry on Daylight Saving Time gives sometime in the 1970’s) but I do remember it being a real pain. Had to get up earlier for school, it stayed light longer in the evening, so it didn’t seem like time to go in (sunset moved later in time so dark came later at night… and who wants to go to bed if it’s not ‘night’ yet?). Eventually, we got acclimated to the change, usually just about the time for the shift back in the fall (back then the changes took place closer together, about 6 months long) when the cycle of adjustment started over again. I think there was a couple of years of debate and votes to approve the change before it was accepted by accident (the wording was to vote NO if you wanted to use DST… most people didn’t like it at first).

Now it doesn’t really matter anymore. Everyone has been subjected to the condition for so long it has become customary. You just “do it” and use the time change as a reminder to check the batteries in your smoke detectors (the method we used to do was wait for the crickets chirp to become so annoying that SOMEONE HAD to drag the ladder in and change the stupid things). Even though your biannual event does not halve the year evenly. In fact, we spend nearly double the  time with the clocks wrong (ahead of solar time) than matching the real world. I suppose this is “better” because when the change took place in April or May, commuting into the rising sun became a hazardous adventure twice each spring. By changing so early in the year, most drivers are going into work while it is still dark before the change, thus endangering each other only one month rather than two, but that’s a small gain.

If we were living in a primarily agrarian society, I might  buy the benefit of the change, but living by the electric time master (who doesn’t care if the sun even exists, for that matter… take serving on a nuclear sub for 90 days without surfacing for example) makes the change pointless for many and painful for some. A close friend of mine suffers from SAD (Seasonal Affect Disorder) and his depression in the dark months is terrifying. DST makes the day start earlier, so he awakens with more darkness ahead than behind, and suffers more severely. My depression is not so sensitive to light/dark cycles, but it is affected by my relationships with others, so the enemy of my friend is my enemy, too. (Maybe ‘enemy’ is too strong a term. Perhaps ‘tormenter’ is more appropriate.)

In any case, I desperately need to spend the next two days being extra nice to as many people as I possibly can.

Because, for most of the month of March, I will be a real jerk…

Phred

post 27 of n

(* For the record, the other worst day is the change back in the late fall. In theory we get an extra hour sleep, but it seldom works out that way…normally we can “stay up an extra hour” and sleep still suffers. HATE HATE HATE DST.)

Dealing With The TV Wasteland Of Weekends

Apparently I am radically different from the majority of male-gender viewers of TV. The spring period from the end of the Superbowl through April is a horrible time for me, especially on the weekends. I HATE basketball. I would rather watch figure skating, gymnastics, or NASCAR than hoops. Even golf or bowling is preferable, fishing tournaments and other events that are fun to do but pointless to watch others do holds more interest for me. As a sign of how desperate I am I am spending more time than usual on channels 49 and 51 on my set. These are QVC and the Home Shopping Network. Unless they are selling cosmetics or jewelry, I tend to linger there longer than what would be natural.

I like sports in general. Most any works as a target of my attention, though in fairness it is harder today than in my younger days. Used to be a baseball game taking more than 90 minutes probably had a rain delay. Today it’s closer to four hours than three, and there’s more pitching changes than commercial breaks in the ancient game. Extreme sport programs have a fuzzy lack of appeal to me, probably because I never rode my bike, skateboard, or skis in any manner that would result in a full-body cast like the daredevils on the Dew Tour or X-Games (well, maybe riding down Coutant Street at nearly 30 MPH might qualify, but it was a straight line down and you had to bail before hitting the end as it ended at Main Street… at a curb).

Maybe my aversion to B-Ball comes from my childhood. I was (to put it mildly) not athletic. I was fat, out of breath, and couldn’t run across the street to escape a rabid dog if necessary. I played tennis (if you count running 15 seconds and gasping for breath the next 45 as play). I was in little league baseball, but it was more for the ice cream cone afterward and the t-shirt than to show my prowess at pitching (or fielding or batting or sitting on the bench… well, maybe the last works). I was bad, but at least I played (sometimes).

But when it came to the neighborhood game of hoops, it wasn’t that I was picked last, but that I was not picked at all. And on the rare occasion some team chose (or more likely, was forced) me to play, I never touched the ball. No matter, I couldn’t shoot anyway. Most of the time I didn’t know who was on my team so my usual play was to pass the ball to the first guy to call out “throw it to me.” I would, then watch with dismay as he would go the other way and score easily. And then be pummeled by my “team” mates. It would not take long before I would feign an injury and limp away humiliated (as weak as my ankles were, it often was not really faking it, either).

“But wait!” you say, “you never played football, hockey, soccer, or cricket but you like watching those games. Why not the Man’s Game?”

Ok, you caught me. I like sports I didn’t have personal experience in as well as some I did. I guess the biggest turnoff for watching March Madness is the pointless waste of time the game spends in the first 98% of the game. Almost without execption, the only part of a game you need to watch is the last 2 minutes of game time (at the end, not the other segments…I’m not even sure if there are 4 quarters or 2 halves in the game or if both apply but differ in pro verses non-pro games). Then you either don’t have to watch as the game is a blowout, or you need to put on Depends and take a 5-hour energy to follow through to the end of the game. Two minutes of time on the game clock equates to at least an hour of real time, closer to two if it goes into overtime.

I’d rather watch Frozen again…

Phred

post 21 of n

ATM Fees and Overdraft Charges In The Bank Of Life

I observed an interaction between a couple using the line “if you do this for me, I’ll make it worth your while tonight…” and delivered (and received) with a smile. The idea of the Emotional Bank account (a nice summary explanation is at http://lifetrainingonline.com/blog/the-emotional-bank-account.htm) was explained by Steven Covey (I took the “7 habits” workshop provided by my employer late in the ’90s). ) We start all relationships with a neutral (think empty or zero balance) account with others and our interactions make deposits and withdrawals in our “account.” The higher our balance, the better our relationship is and the more room we have to make “errors” without permanently damaging our line of credit.

Reflecting on this image from long ago, I think the idea remains valid, but is incomplete. I don’t remember being told (or reading while going through other of his writings on my own) about the regular “service fees” and additional charges that might occur, most importantly the “foreign ATM use” charge.

It is (depressingly) common today for banks to charge a “nominal” monthly service fee, whether you actually use your account or not. Time was, banks were local institutions where your actions with the staff might allow you to talk to the same teller for decades. My dad was able to go in to the bank and get a car loan without filling out any paperwork (he had been a customer over 30 years and knew the loan officer well). A home mortgage was slightly more complicated, but not the federal interrogation required to get a loan today.

Over time, the local bank was purchased by a state, regional, then national bank, changing names and personnel each time. Worse than the lack of personal contact with people you knew, the larger companies had less competition so they were able to increase rates without fear of competition. Pay more to people that cared less. So free checking and savings accounts became $9.99 per month and a $5.00 fee if you “made more than” / “didn’t make at least” n transactions in a period (having both a checking and savings account with the same institution could trigger both penalties as each account was considered separately). Now to avoid charges you need  to maintain a really large balance or incur the wrath of the financial gods.

In the bank of life, a similar event occurs for relationships. If you go a long(ish) time without interacting with a person, your effective balance is lower than you might have assumed (based on what you remembered it was at your last meeting). Your best practice would be to always start any relationship transaction with a deposit (in case you missed a fee or so). Nice dress/hat/hair/shoes/car/spouse/tattoo/[insert appropriate item here].

I think by far the more hazardous fee (especially if you are involved in a long-term relationship…or want to be in one) comes from the “foreign ATM” charges. This principle is where you use a machine from another bank than the one your card is from. When you make a deposit in a foreign account in the presence of your usual bank, WOW! You can be hit with massive service charges when you get home (or to the car, followed by either a cold and silent ride home or a heated “discussion” along the way). Even if innocent, the transaction causes fees that need additional deposits and payments that will accrue interest until covered.

The best way to keep from declaring bankruptcy is to be intentional about making deposits in every transaction you face. Be nice, say thanks, open doors and let traffic in. Life is too short to find overdraft notices in your mailbox daily.

Oh, and a final suggestion is to cut up the credit cards from the Bank of Life…the interest charge rate is too high for the usefulness of withdrawing funds you haven’t got, and hope to make up by the end of the month. Even on the fifth, the end of the month is too close…

Phred

post 18 of n

Say Hello To My Little Friend…

More often than not, when asked how I feel, my short response is “I hurt.” (Longer response next line is “But it only hurts if I live…unfortunately it appears that I’m gonna live, so….”) I am the possessor of a bout of chronic pain. Mine is joint pain from arthritis centered mostly in knees and left hip, but including right shoulder (I finally have accepted that my pitching career is over; lifetime stats in little league was 16 wins and 22 losses) neck and hands. And just about every other place that bends.

I can’t remember for sure when it actually started, but I remember going to my doctor sometime while driving a propane truck for a living, so it happened sometime in the mid 1980’s. My job was to haul cylinders around, small tanks for fork trucks and hundred pound tanks for water heaters and ranges and stuff like that. Didn’t lift the big tanks so much as drag them around on a cart, but the “thirty-three pounders” were carry and throw around.  The truck held 72 in a load, did two loads three times a week and another single load on Monday’s. Individual tank weights varied, but by the time you took a 40 pound tank loaded with 30 pounds of propane and carried it on the truck, took it off at a customer and put an empty back in its place, then unloaded the truck back at the plant, each tank was lift and carry over 220 pounds. Each truck maxed out at 15,840 pounds, up to seven loads a week for 110,880 pounds a week and a monthly load about 480,480 pounds. When I actually calculated the numbers one lunch hour, moving up to 240 tons of material each month might explain why my back hurt constantly (disregarding for a moment the idea that I drove about a million miles while working for the company). Sometime in here was the beginning of my long-term relationship with my “friend.”

Dr. Call prescribed Naproxen Sodium (the stuff that is in the Aleve OTC pain medication). I had tried all the other “without a prescription” drugs from the local drug store without success. My first day on this stuff was SO good, I wanted to go back and kiss the man. For the first time in a long time my back just didn’t hurt. And this stuff was pretty cheap, less than half the effective cost of buying generic substitute OTC drugs (the box says all day pain relief comes with taking two 220 mg pills a day; my dosage was 500 mg twice a day, over twice the recommended dose).

However, all good things come to an end (or, as I’ve heard it put, “no good deed goes unpunished”) and over time the benefit received declined. I continued to take this drug essentially continuously for the next twenty-five years. Habitual use without much recognized benefit. I did seem to notice if i failed to take the stuff I felt worse (even long after leaving the job driving tanks around) but I didn’t feel pain-free. Over time, various other events and needs allowed for the use of “stronger” drugs (Tylenol 2 and 3 with various amounts of narcotics and Vicodin) but for the most part the most they ever did was to knock off the edge of the pain. Eventually I had my hip replaced (the right one, twice in fact, but that’s another story) and was on a morphine pump to manage pain. Oddly enough, the pain from the surgery was minuscule compared to the pain in my knees from being forced to lie flat on my back and straight legged (something that I had not done for decades). And even then, the drugs only took a percentage off the top (a minor percentage at that). So pain has been around for a long time.

I don’t think a “normal” person can relate to having a chronic condition. A friend of mine has nearly continuous migraine headaches. Erica has gone on long term disability and has spent over a week in a specialty hospital trying to get relief. In my teens I went through a time when I had one a couple times a month but to experience nearly continuous and unrelenting torment is nearly inconceivable. (Or would have been before the hip experience… pain never less than three and rarely greater than eight, but going on continuously.) To maintain her sanity and her sense of humor during her trials is nothing short of amazing. And humbling, as my levels now run in the two-to-five range.

Then again, perhaps we all share more than I am giving us credit for. Not all pain is physical, and not all physical infirmity results in pain. Maybe by sharing in the chronic condition of life we are closer than what a casual glance might suggest. Peer and cultural pressure to conform to what passes as “normal” can generate substantial chronic psychic pain. Stress from work, conflicting obligations within limited time and resource restraints and poorly chosen decisions can drive health issues ranging from sleep deprivation to actual illness. Interpersonal relationships, often a source of healing, unless maintained with care can add to your level of life’s pain. And don’t get me started on the whole “getting older” theme…

I am truly grateful that I am in as good shape as I am, regardless of my limitations. I understand I could be worse off. But I also am more aware of others as a result of what I have gone through (and still am going) and am encouraged by the endurance of those around me. Perhaps I need to revisit my expression to read: “It only hurts if we live…and because it hurts, we LIVE!”

Phred

post 17 of n