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Real summer
We are in the middle of a typical February heat wave in Perth. We started getting hot easterly winds on Friday and they continued over the weekend. Yesterday and today we added in very high temperatures and it will be above 40C the next three days according to the latest forecast. Not sure of a previously forecast storm/shower is still on the cards now but I’m hoping not if it brings high humidity. I think this weekend was the first of the summer with many major bushfires. There must have been something nearby as a helicopter kept passing by. Our neighborhood is adjacent to Whiteman Park, a large state park which has experiences regular bushfires.
One of my main objectives this afternoon was to buy new cross trainers. I bought a pair of New Balance walking shoes online early last year, I think, and they did a pretty good job for just walking and were relatively inexpensive for  brand name shoes. I’ve been using those at the gym but as they aren’t meant for that sort of use, they are looking pretty worn and torn now. They also weren’t exactly stable shoes with their lack of tread and support for any impact exercise. My search started last weekend with a trip to our nearby shopping centre with the Scientist. That wasn’t an ideal time to start my search due it being the last weekend before the new school year started. Shoe shops were all pretty packed with people. I ended up at a discount place where I was able to try on shoes with minimal assistance. I found one shoe that I liked the look of at a very good price but they didn’t have my size or anything near it. I fell back on the tried and true New Balance brand as they tend work well with my relatively wide feet. I started with a 9 ½ and that felt okay but after walking around a bit I noticed there seemed to be a lot of space around my toes and my concern was my feet would be swimming in space once they were worn in a bit. This is something of a surprise as I’ve worn similar models before and have always required this size. I tried on a size 9 and they also felt fine but after walking around in them, I worried that maybe they were a bit limited in toes space, even allowing for stretch. I dithered quite a bit and must have driven the Scientist a bit mad, especially when I left without buying anything.
I went back to the store today without dragging the Scientist along. He was quite busy watching the one-day cricket match so I think I’d have found it difficult to persuade him to come along. This week that shoe that I really liked was again available but it was no longer on sale. I tried a pair on anyway just to see how they felt. They felt okay but I thought they didn’t accommodate my orthotics as well as the ones I’d tried last week. I checked for other possibilities before trying the same shoes as last week. This time I found the 9½ really was too roomy and the 9 felt fine. I walked around for a little while just to be sure and decided on the size 9 shoes. I also scored a free pair of Thorlo socks (usually $20) as a bonus with these shoes, which were only $89. I later noticed the socks were made in Statesville, NC which wasn’t that far out of the way from where I used to live in Charlotte. I guess it shouldn’t surprise me too much to know that North Carolina is still very much a textile center.
My next stop was at the grocery store to pick up milk and a few groceries before rushing back to our local pet and garden store to get a couple of things for the dogs while they were still on sale today. I was in and out of there within five minutes and went to start the car and it wouldn’t start. I turned off the air conditioner and radio and tried again and it still wouldn’t start. I made a call home and then to the RAC roadside assistance service and then had a 45 minute wait for someone to arrive. Meanwhile I had milk and some frozen foods in the car and it was like an oven outside. The Scientist suggested I ask the pet and garden store people if I could keep my bag in their freezer and they were quite accommodating. I mostly waited inside that store as it was somewhat cooler than than outside. It also had a wide open entrance that allowed me to watch out for the familiar yellow vehicle that signalled help had arrived. After what seemed a very long time, someone did arrive and it was soon worked out that the battery was dead, or nearly so since the radio still worked. This wasn’t a surprise since we’ve had some problems starting the car lately. I’d hoped to wait until our service early next month but the need arose before then. I was given a jump start to get home and the guy sent through an order for someone to come and replace the battery. I was home in short order and it was no time at all before someone turned up to replace the battery. This is probably the fastest response time we’ve ever had for a new battery. While the Scientist dealt with the car, I set about fixing my somewhat dehydrated body.
A couple hours later I had eaten and drunk sufficiently and felt much better. Â Now my dilemma was whether to go to the gym or not. Normally this wouldn’t be too much of an issue as Monday is our normal day off so I could just pick up a lost day there. But I am giving plasma on Tuesday and planned to exercise on Monday so I could have Tuesday off. In the end I did go to the gym and worked out for just over an hour. I wore my new shoes and found they were far better for the squats and lunges in the workout I was doing today. I won’t say they felt totally right but I think they will be pretty comfortable once they are worn in a bit.
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Vet visit again!
Yesterday the Scientist and I were out in the backyard trying to clean up some of the messes out there. He was doing poop patrol and I started chopping away at branches on a bottlebrush tree that recently shifted into a low position after the weight of the branches became too much. My intention was to work on a bit of it now and come back to it. The Scientist finished the dirty work and started helping cut branches. Meanwhile the dogs happily were running about the yard, pleased to have people outside with them again. Maromi suddenly came running out of the honeysuckle bush he’d been burrowing into and was yelping in pain. Long story short, he had another grass seed get stuck in his ear. This is the third time this has happened but this time he had to be sedated to get it out. What came out was pretty big and would have been difficult to remove with an awake dog. But the problem we have was they were ready to do this before seeing what was in the ear. The previous two times we had to use an after hours vet and they handled it all on the spot without sedation. I’m sure the local vet is just trying to cautious but I can’t help thinking the sedation can’t be a good thing either. Poor little guy took a lot longer to recover this time and is still a bit groggy over twelve hours after the fact.
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Thursday musings
Seems we are not having a heat wave after all. At least it’s not happening at the moment. We’ve had two very pleasant days and tonight is already quite chill. Our air conditioner hasn’t come on all evening, which is nice for this time of the year. I think I’ll be adding a blanket to my side of the bed since my feet will likely go cold with this chill. It looks like it might warm up a bit over the weekend and into next week.
The place I visited to see the trackball contacted me a couple times yesterday and this morning although I managed to miss all the calls. I assumed the Slimblade Trackball might have arrived earlier than expected. I just happened to be in the area this afternoon and stopped by to check it out. It had arrived and different guy to the one who I spoke to earlier opened it up for me to have a look. It’s a lot like my old Expert Trackball mouse but much sleeker and probably more ergonomic than the earlier model. It was a bit pricey but I went ahead and bought it since it the temporary replacement has been driving me bonkers. At least I know I can use it for short periods of time should I need to do so in the future. I’ve only used it for a little while but it’s been pretty much a breeze so far. The click sound is different than I expected but I’m sure I will get used to that. Also, this doesn’t have a scroll wheel but I quickly found it easy to turn the trackball like a scroll wheel and I think that’s going work out well once I get the hang of it. I think it’s just a matter of working out what’s comfortable for me. When I was researching potential replacements for my old trackball, I read this one was great until you got to the software support for the device. Apparently there was none for quite some time after its release. The good news is that seems to have been rectified and there is software that I might download and try out.
This morning the boys and I went to visit an old friend of Game Fanatic from his Dungeons and dragons/ board game group. That group sort of disappeared quite some time ago and aside from one of those guys, we haven’t seen anyone for at least two years. I’d kept a slight contact with this boys mom via email and more recently on Facebook but we hadn’t seen them at all. This guy had recently earned a perfect score on his year 12 exams and had appeared in our local paper (his distance ed high school is local to us) but not theirs. I had offered to collect some copies of the paper for his family and it was a good opportunity for Game Fanatic to get a bit of social interaction happening. It was also an opportunity to put Lego Lover in some sort of social situation.
I didn’t think Lego Lover would wake up in time since he sleeps late almost every day lately. But he did wake up almost immediately. I had offered a positive consequence if he went and was well-behaved so think this might have been a good motivation for him. It was a bit harder to get Game Fanatic up but he did manage and got ready reasonably quickly. Once there I left the boys in the kitchen to play a board game (Age of Mythology-which apparently bears little to no resemblance to the computer game) while I chatted mostly with the mum. We had a rather nice catch up in the limited time we had there. And Game Fanatic enjoyed playing the game with the two older brothers for this family. Lego Lover mostly stood and stared at the ground but eventually started showing some attention to the game that was being played and even talked to Game Fanatic a little bit from what he tells me. It’s nothing big but I think it all went better than I expected. Lego Lover’s involvement is just a starting point in a plan I have to get him more socially involved this year. As the school year will be starting soon, I may post about that in more detail before then.
I should also add to the above bit about the friend’s achievement that this is the second boy from the same D&D group to have a perfect score on the year 12 exam. Another boy did the same two years ago and is now studying to be a surgeon if I remember correctly.
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Odds and ends
We’re in the middle of another heatwave here after dodging pretty much all effects of Cyclone Narelle, which didn’t hit the northwest coast of Western Australia as originally expected. The much needed rain never eventuated and it’s just hot and humid right now. Fun stuff. We had the hotted night since 1989 last night at something like 27.8 C. Despite our a/c running all night, it was still pretty uncomfortable so I can imagine how bad it was for those without it at all.
I donated blood again today and it all went pretty easily and quickly. I think I felt the most normal I ever have after a donation. I even refused the little chocolate bar as the muffin was plenty for me. I go back in a month for a plasma donation and in three months for another regular blood donation.
Because I was donating blood today, I changed my day off  exercise for the week from Monday to Tuesday. This meant I worked out seven days in a row and my body seems quite ready for a break. I think I’ve exacerbated my shoulder problem again so will likely take an extra day off doing weights and adapt my routine a bit until that feels better. I’d also been doing rowing pretty much every day so this seems a good time to change gears and focus on a different cardio machine for a little while.
I made my chickpea and veggie patties last Friday and they came out quite well. Using the new food processor didn’t exactly make it quick and easy but it certainly improved on time and labor to took to prepare some of the ingredients for cooking. I also tried cooking the patties in the air fryer and they came out quite well there. The time had to be adjusted a bit after the first batch or two but it seemed to do a pretty good job of cooking them. The only change I made was to make the patties smaller so they would cook more evenly. I had some old leeks in the fridge so I chopped one of those up into the onion and zucchini mixture and it worked well. I’ve also started adding a bit of chopped kale to that mixture and that has also worked well. It’s nice to be able to play around with ingredients a bit when making this recipe. My only mistake was I got a bit food processor crazy and started chopping up more veggies for a stir fry while cooking. But because I was devoting less time to it, it turned into a pan full of sort of mushy veggies with a strong leek flavor. I must admit I am a bit over the leeks right now. But I will try them again for some winter cooking, like leek and potato soup.
After having trouble choosing my doctor on the online appointments system and getting that fixed, I have found that system seems to always have issues. For a week or two, there were no appointments showing up at all. Then only one doctor was showing up. I hadn’t checked it for a while but today found that all the new doctors are showing up and none of the established ones. This means I have to call for any appointment for the  family since none of us see the new doctors. The other issue is you can only book short appointments on this system and of appointments I need to make, at least two will need to be long ones due to extra items to be handled. It appears the online booking system as it stands isn’t going to work out for our family after all. :(
I found a shop sort of near us that sells a trackball mouse that I think might work to replace my old one. They didn’t have one in stock to look at but will call me when one arrives. I’m handling the Logitech trackball mouse that was supposed to replace the Kensington expert trackball mouse…but only to a just functioning level. I find it hard to get the cursor from one side of the screen to the other with any speed. At first I thought this was due to the fact I am left-handed and the muscle strength in my thumb isn’t as good as the left one. But now I think it’s due to the small trackball and the not-so-smooth movements. Once I get a new trackball mouse, I imagine this will just be stored as a back up for the future. To be honest, I think I’d have done just as well with a reasonably ergonomic mouse for the interim period.
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Impressed
I used the new food processor for the first time and it was just awesome to use. I cut a big bowl of mushrooms today for use in a dish I was preparing and it took almost no time at all. I also chopped up the onion and it took three seconds at most. It was a bit more minced than chopped so I might try it in the mini bowl that it comes with for next time. I also sliced up some chorizo sausage and that worked well once I set the cutter to the right thickness. But cleaning out the blade afterwards was enough work I don’t think I’ll try that again. I suspect this works similarly to cheese, which isn’t supposed to be used on the machine as it will void the warranty. Which is a shame since it made one of the ickier jobs a lot less icky…until cleanup, of course. :) I had a friend over yesterday and showed her our new machines and realised I can cook my chickpea and vegetable patties in the new air fryer. It’s looking pretty likely that will be my project tomorrow. :D
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Back into photos
Last year was a pretty poor one with regard to photography. My main goal has been to reflect experiences and places and hopefully keep improving my photography. I realised last month I’d only uploaded a handful of photos to Flickr, then looked at my photos and realised there really aren’t all that many available to upload anyway. I did finally upload more photos but the pickings were slim. Many were just repeats of the same thing and many just weren’t very good.
I hope this year will be more fruitful. I have a new camera that I’m still getting to know plus my older, sort of fancy but not too fancy DSLR…Not to mention my iPhone camera for more casual photos. I started tonight to work on recent photos in preparation for uploads and have added at least a dozen new photos. These are all still from 2012 but maybe I will soon be working on lots of new ones for 2013.
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I forgot what I wanted to write…
I had some things I wanted to write about some time and now I’ve totally forgotten. Which reminds me that I seem to have a really bad habit of forgetting things when I go to the gym. Even after four months I still seem to forget something at least once a week. It’s a royal pain for me and surely far worse for the Scientist, who rarely forgets the stuff he needs. Lately it’s mostly been the water bottle that’s left…I think it’s a matter of checking everything and seeing the bottle and thinking I have it until I look in my bag and see I don’t.
My trackball mouse (Kensington Expert Mouse) seems to be about kaput now. It does work for some things but one of two most-used buttons isn’t working now. I’ve pulled out the Logitech trackball mouse bought several months ago and I’m trying that out again. The trackball on the old one was a big one in the center and I just moved it around with my fingers. The newer one requires me to use my right thumb to move around and I find it difficult to manage. I suspect this is because I am left-handed and my right thumb is weaker…Or not…I’ve always used a mouse with my right hand and the old trackball was also used by my right hand. Who knows? I also find the movement of the ball doesn’t feel all that smooth compared to what I’m used to. Â I’m looking at potential replacements and I’m not terribly encouraged as there’s not a lot more available than when I bought the old one. Kensington now have a newer model which is sleeker and possibly works beautifully. Or I could replace with the same model, which now seems a bit clunky in comparison but worked pretty well for me. There’s not an option to try out new types so I will have to risk it and hope for the best.
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Fitness continued
It’s now been four months since the Scientist and I joined the gym and it’s going pretty well right now. The Scientist has lost 15 kgs or more, I think, and is looking quite good these days. His blood pressure has dropped so much that he is hoping to reduce his medication dosage when he sees his doctor next time. My weight loss is only 5.6 kgs but I have lost quite a few centimeters around my waist and hips… I’m not quite sure where the weight has shifted but my clothes are fitting a lot better these days.
Early last month I was sick with what I assume was a flu and/or stomach bug and missed a couple days at the gym for the first time since we started. There simply was no choice as I had a fever and other flu symptoms…at the very least I didn’t want to spread the germs around. As it is, I suspect I picked whatever the bug was at the gym due to the failure of many members to clean the equipment. There are wipes provided for this but so few people use them. Anyway, missing those two days seemed to really throw off my routine and it’s been a struggle getting back into the swing of things over the past few weeks. Having holidays in the middle have also been disruptive even though we have continued to go six days a week. We even went on Christmas Day, which was reasonably crowded considering it was a holiday.
Despite the difficulties, I have managed to bring my weights workouts back to where I started and beyond. My shoulder isn’t 100% but it seems to be mostly okay now. I also started back to doing my rowing again, which I was missing while my shoulder was healing. The gym held a competition for fastest 1000 meter row last month and it motivated me to improve my 1000 meter times while doing intervals. I managed to get down to 4 minutes 35 seconds as a best personal time. I never competed officially but I think I got just behind the two fastest times for women and one of those was a trainer at the gym who is probably half my age. I think that’s pretty good for an almost 48 year old.
Anyway, I hit another hurdle near the end of the month where I just couldn’t keep up the rowing for any decent time, even when doing just 500 meter intervals. And just about every time I rowed, I started coughing a lot. I persisted and kept trying to reach that satisfied feeling after rowing but I found myself exhausted pretty much every time. I gave up trying to improve my 1000 meter times. But I did keep rowing most days and finally last week I found myself gasping for breath and having to stop even though I was rowing pretty slowly. I gave up the rowing and moved to my weights routine and eventually felt improved although I was tired out by the whole experience. To backtrack many years, I was treated for an asthma cough one bad spring and summer when my hayfever was quite bad. Later on I was told by a specialist it wasn’t asthma but reflux cough…not sure myself that it couldn’t have been both but it’s nothing I will quibble about as it’s possible to get an inhaler over the counter here. I haven’t had any issues for many years so all the puffers were out of date, aside from a prescribed one for Game Fanatic. I bought a new one the other day. I also pulled out a peak flow meter I’d bought all those years ago and found I was getting much lower readings than I’d had at my clearest before. I used some of the medication and it improved heaps so I took it with me to the gym the following day but didn’t end up using it. I didn’t feel great but I wasn’t gasping for breath either. The next day I tried using medication before I exercised and felt so much better for it. I was still having a bit of trouble keeping a normal breathing rhythm while rowing but my lungs were definitely clear.
Today I walked to the gym and I was quite warmed up by the time I got there. I also used the inhaler before I got there and my lungs were definitely clear. I usually do three or four 1000 meter intervals with two minute breaks between them (depending on whether it’s a cardio or weights day). Today was a weights day but I did 30 minutes on the rower with no break and felt okay after I finished. Then I did my weights routine which I reduced a bit due to the extra time I’d already spent rowing. And I felt really good after I finished for the first time in ages. I’m not totally sure, Â but I suspect I’ve been having exercise induced asthma episodes. Something else to discuss with my doctor when I see her next…which should be soon as I am due for regular blood tests any time now. Tomorrow is my day off exercise but I’m really hoping to have another good workout on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, my knee is still making slow progress. I think I’m probably around 85-90% of where I’d like to be and it’s just taking a long time to progress any further. The progress is mostly showing on the stairs…going up is a lot faster although not exactly the smoothest movement. Going down is still slow but I think I am better than a couple months ago. My knee still gives way, sometimes several times a day and sometimes a lot less often. I’ve resolved to start doing squats again as that’s the one exercise I have been really bad about doing as they are quite difficult…so I have avoided them. Maybe it will be the key to reaching my goal…
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New and improved
Our local doctors group moved into a new surgery a few months ago. It’s all quite modern, but a bit sterile in the overall look. In addition, they recently added themselves to a service that allows patients to make appointments online. In theory this is a good thing since it frees us the surgery staff to do other things instead of constantly answering the telephone. It also allows me to see what’s available and choose rather than depend on the staff to tell me. My first experiences using it were a bit mixed. We’ve been going to this surgery for probably sixteen years so our family is well-known there. We’ve seen the practice grow from a fairly small office with one regular doctor to a bigger one with six or seven doctors and now to a rather large practice with about ten to fifteen. Â We haven’t always seen the same doctors but have settled in with regular doctors in the past few years. I’ve been seeing Dr. S for at least five or six years now. I’ve been mostly happy with her and she knows me well. I needed to see a doctor recently and decided to try out the new system. Dr S didn’t have any appointments showing as available. I scheduled with Dr T, who I saw on my last visit when I hurt my shoulder. A few days later I went back and discovered there were a few appointments now available with Dr. S. But when I went to try and schedule with her, I got a message trying to tell me she wasn’t my doctor and she wasn’t taking on new patients. A bit frustrating but as it was the weekend, I went back and rescheduled with Dr T as it wasn’t essential I see my usual doctor for this visit.
I went to my appointment and Dr T was fine for the main issue I needed to see someone about. I also discussed another issue and ran into some difficulty because this new doctor doesn’t know me or my history. Much of the time was spent with her referring back to previous notes on my record and clarifying issues. In the end I didn’t feel she quite understood the situation that well and will need to revisit the subject when I next see my usual doctor.
I did ask about the online system when I went to settle my account at the end. Seems the system was set up in a way that it’s necessary to manually add the doctor to the patient. At least this is the case for the more established doctors who already have quite a number of patients on their books. I’ve now been set up with Dr S listed as my regular doctor so it should work properly in the future. I’m relieved this worked out as I would much rather do online appointments than have to call each time.
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It’s the weekend-odd and ends from the past week or so
A couple weeks ago the Scientist and I both installed Windows 8 on our computers. Last weekend, I had a problem where my computer wouldn’t move out of sleep mode and something must have gone wrong because no amount of recovery would work. Eventually it was decided to do a clean installation and also to replace the hard drive as it was kind of old and started to get crowded. The installation went fine and I’m still trying to install some of my missing software. I ran into some troubles when I tried to load my outlook mail files and have yet to find the most recent files. I do, however, have files going back five years or more. Most of my email in recent years has gone through my gmail accounts so I should be able to retrieve most things but it doesn’t feel right for it to be missing.
I finally replaced my stolen camera last weekend too. After buying the required items from the computer shop, the Scientist and I ended up dropping in to Camera House in the mall. It’s not the one we usually visit as it’s a bit further away from the local store, but it seems to be one of the better stocked stores in the chain. It happens that the model I wanted, an Olympus Pen PL-5, Â had just come in a couple days before and hadn’t even made it out of the box yet. I looked at it and also the “mini” version plus the Canon G15, which is very much like the camera that was stolen. I even had a quick look at a another Canon but that one was really not what I was looking for. I eventually bought what I’d expected to buy and brought it home. When you’ve used cameras from the same company for a few years, it’s a bit weird to be faced with totally different operating systems and controls. I found it overwhelming at the start because it really is quite different than any of the others I’ve used. But I’m getting more used to it and learning the controls little by little. Hopefully I’ll be up to speed with it before the next birthdays and holidays.
Monday morning, I logged onto the computer early to buy tickets for the Neil Finn-Paul Kelly concert happening next March. I really enjoyed the one-off show they did last year so I imagine the next one will also be pretty special. It was kind of funny because I happened to comment a couple weeks ago that it looked like we wouldn’t be seeing and Finn-related shows this year. While that is true, this tour was announced just a few days later and now we have the anticipation of the next show. I’m hoping to take my new camera with me and try it out on the low lighting of the venue.
A couple days ago I was taking our family friend, an intellectually disabled man, to the library and gym as a carer. While at the library I decided to check out a couple of books. I haven’t used this card for a while so it was necessary to update details. It was a bit of a shock when the librarian read out my alternate contact as my friend who died earlier this year. This really surprised me because I do recall using her as a contact for a couple of libraries. But it was weird feeling to have her name pop up like that. Today would have been her fiftieth birthday so I’ve been particularly feeling her absence today. Her name also popped up on Facebook as she had an account that she hardly used. I keep thinking I should remove her name from my friends list but it doesn’t feel right to do that for some reason.
My shoulder is starting to feel better now. I’m still taking pain tablets daily but I was able to drop down to just one a day this week. It’s been hard having to avoid exercises using these muscles but I’ve mostly managed it so far. All going well I should be able to start moving back to my usual exercise next week. I’ll have to be cautious, though, because I seem to suffer more pain hours after exercise than I do while doing it. Meanwhile, my legs have been getting a pretty good workout on the cardio machines lately. To end on a really positive note, the woman who owns the gym has said she wants to do before and after photos of the Scientist and me in January as we’ve both made some good progress since we started. The Scientist has already lost 10kgs since the end of August. My weight hasn’t dropped a lot but my other measurements have gone down pretty steadily and it’s obvious by the way my clothes fit.