"I was in Boston for a week once. I didn't hear a decent mariachi band the entire time I was there."
First, in case you missed this link I posted on Facebook, drop what you're doing and go watch this YouTube video. Safe for all environments save that you will certainly laugh out loud and attract attention to yourself:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ntDYjS0Y3w&sns=em
Enjoy!
Health News
Elsewhere, I got some really interesting health news the other day. I went in for routine bloodwork recently, mostly concerned about my cholesterol, and glucose which was just shy of pushing over into the pre-diabetic range when I checked last August. Cholesterol is holding steady in the "near optimal" range for my risk group, although I'd still like to improve those numbers. Glucose was 98 in August, and 100 is what they consider the low end of the "pre-diabetic" range -- basically think of that as the red flashing light and beeping alarm in a video game telling you that you better clean up your act or yer gonna develop diabetes. I definitely want to lower that number! It was 92 in the recent labs, which is good news. Again, however, I seek further improvement on that.
The real surprise came in my TSH score regarding my thyroid levels. To offer you a truly inadequate gross over-simplification of an explanation of TSH scores, let's skip to the bottom line that the score is normally on a scale of 5, and you want to hit right in the middle around 2.5. My score was... 13.07!! This is an outrageous score, signifying that something is very wrong on Saturn 3. (Obscure movie reference that probably few people remember... or should.) A TSH score of 13 puts my thyroid in the range of, "Dude, that's seriously fucked up."
The good news here is this means that my doctor is increasing my daily thyroid dose. I was taking 175 mcg for a few years, felt great. Last year, my physician lowered that to 150. I felt that things weren't right. I called her nurse a month after my last labs to say that I wasn't feeling like my thyroid is right, and I was concerned about my elevated TSH (of about 3-something) at the time. I am in no way surprised to learn that my thyroid is low, although I am surprised to learn that it's this far off.
This is Day 3 back on the higher dose, and it's night and day in terms of my energy levels, my mood, the works. Already I feel so much better! Overall, that was indeed weird health news, but to good result.
Mixed Bag of Other Carp
Civil Litigation looks like it's going to be low on reading, and light on pressure to work hard to achieve an A. If I wanted to go into litigation as a career, I question how much I'd learn in the style I predict for this class. Fortunately, I'd rather be strained through a chainlink fence than work in litigation, so really I'm interested in simply the general education, and the good grade. I think it will be an entertaining semester.
This leaves me with the anticipation of more free time than I expected... and still the creative spark looking for something to engulf. I started knitting that sugar skulls hat I mentioned, and I'm just not happy with it. I'm using sport weight yarn on #4s, and to use the formal term, it's just too "loosey-goosey." I think I'll start over on #2s, but I've got to modify this pattern to shorten the floats. Chances are good that only a maximum of three of you know what the hell that means, but for everybody else, it means a little more planning and modification of the knitting pattern as written. Might unwind that and restart it this weekend.
With the rest of my anticipated copious free time, however, I am once again daring to dream the impossible dream... I'm thinking of GMing a table-top campaign!
I've never done this in my life -- not even a single adventure. The main obstacle is that I don't know any single game system well enough to even know how to roll to hit without the person next to me at the table, "What do I roll again?" (This is only the very slightest exaggeration, I may note.) The second largest obstacle is that I don't want to run canned adventures out of the book. I want to run a continuing campaign with well-known repeating NPCs and resources, with emotional investment, and... you know... stuff. So that's wicked more complex than merely, "You are now by yourself standing in a dark room, the pungent stench of mildew emanates off the wet dungeon walls." I'm thinking of running a heroic level game, starting in the modern day, with time travel as a theme, and some sci-fi elements a la "Lost," but with less unexplained crazy bullshit that goes nowhere. (More Dharma Initiative, less black smoke.) I dunno. I'm just making this up as I go along. This sort of impulse usually only lasts about 48 hours, anyhow, before I decide "This is a stupid idea," and lose interest. In these 48 hours, Ian is going to put some Aberrant books in my hands to review. He likes that system best, and it is nicely configured for this sort of genre and power level. I'll take a look and think about it further... and probably give up and do nothing about it. But hope springs eternal!
Tried to buy opera tickets today to go see "The Marriage of Figaro," for something a little different. Tix have been on sale for months, and naturally all the cheap seats are sold out. This would be a fun $60 date -- far less fun at $112+. Maybe next time. Meanwhile, I see I have also waited too long to buy tickets for the mariachi concert with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra on Cinco de Mayo. I LOVE live mariachi music like you would not believe! But again -- waited too long, and now the show is all but sold out.
That's about all the carp for now.
T$
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ntDYjS0Y3w&sns=em
Enjoy!
Health News
Elsewhere, I got some really interesting health news the other day. I went in for routine bloodwork recently, mostly concerned about my cholesterol, and glucose which was just shy of pushing over into the pre-diabetic range when I checked last August. Cholesterol is holding steady in the "near optimal" range for my risk group, although I'd still like to improve those numbers. Glucose was 98 in August, and 100 is what they consider the low end of the "pre-diabetic" range -- basically think of that as the red flashing light and beeping alarm in a video game telling you that you better clean up your act or yer gonna develop diabetes. I definitely want to lower that number! It was 92 in the recent labs, which is good news. Again, however, I seek further improvement on that.
The real surprise came in my TSH score regarding my thyroid levels. To offer you a truly inadequate gross over-simplification of an explanation of TSH scores, let's skip to the bottom line that the score is normally on a scale of 5, and you want to hit right in the middle around 2.5. My score was... 13.07!! This is an outrageous score, signifying that something is very wrong on Saturn 3. (Obscure movie reference that probably few people remember... or should.) A TSH score of 13 puts my thyroid in the range of, "Dude, that's seriously fucked up."
The good news here is this means that my doctor is increasing my daily thyroid dose. I was taking 175 mcg for a few years, felt great. Last year, my physician lowered that to 150. I felt that things weren't right. I called her nurse a month after my last labs to say that I wasn't feeling like my thyroid is right, and I was concerned about my elevated TSH (of about 3-something) at the time. I am in no way surprised to learn that my thyroid is low, although I am surprised to learn that it's this far off.
This is Day 3 back on the higher dose, and it's night and day in terms of my energy levels, my mood, the works. Already I feel so much better! Overall, that was indeed weird health news, but to good result.
Mixed Bag of Other Carp
Civil Litigation looks like it's going to be low on reading, and light on pressure to work hard to achieve an A. If I wanted to go into litigation as a career, I question how much I'd learn in the style I predict for this class. Fortunately, I'd rather be strained through a chainlink fence than work in litigation, so really I'm interested in simply the general education, and the good grade. I think it will be an entertaining semester.
This leaves me with the anticipation of more free time than I expected... and still the creative spark looking for something to engulf. I started knitting that sugar skulls hat I mentioned, and I'm just not happy with it. I'm using sport weight yarn on #4s, and to use the formal term, it's just too "loosey-goosey." I think I'll start over on #2s, but I've got to modify this pattern to shorten the floats. Chances are good that only a maximum of three of you know what the hell that means, but for everybody else, it means a little more planning and modification of the knitting pattern as written. Might unwind that and restart it this weekend.
With the rest of my anticipated copious free time, however, I am once again daring to dream the impossible dream... I'm thinking of GMing a table-top campaign!
I've never done this in my life -- not even a single adventure. The main obstacle is that I don't know any single game system well enough to even know how to roll to hit without the person next to me at the table, "What do I roll again?" (This is only the very slightest exaggeration, I may note.) The second largest obstacle is that I don't want to run canned adventures out of the book. I want to run a continuing campaign with well-known repeating NPCs and resources, with emotional investment, and... you know... stuff. So that's wicked more complex than merely, "You are now by yourself standing in a dark room, the pungent stench of mildew emanates off the wet dungeon walls." I'm thinking of running a heroic level game, starting in the modern day, with time travel as a theme, and some sci-fi elements a la "Lost," but with less unexplained crazy bullshit that goes nowhere. (More Dharma Initiative, less black smoke.) I dunno. I'm just making this up as I go along. This sort of impulse usually only lasts about 48 hours, anyhow, before I decide "This is a stupid idea," and lose interest. In these 48 hours, Ian is going to put some Aberrant books in my hands to review. He likes that system best, and it is nicely configured for this sort of genre and power level. I'll take a look and think about it further... and probably give up and do nothing about it. But hope springs eternal!
Tried to buy opera tickets today to go see "The Marriage of Figaro," for something a little different. Tix have been on sale for months, and naturally all the cheap seats are sold out. This would be a fun $60 date -- far less fun at $112+. Maybe next time. Meanwhile, I see I have also waited too long to buy tickets for the mariachi concert with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra on Cinco de Mayo. I LOVE live mariachi music like you would not believe! But again -- waited too long, and now the show is all but sold out.
That's about all the carp for now.
T$