< Notes...

These are delightful and, on their own, one of the real reasons for the end-of-year holidays: Italian Panettones. I know they have plenty of carbs and sugars and, yet, can’t stop munching them accompanied by a cold glass of milk.

Heavy cleaning towards Thanksgiving celebration/hosting completed. That means toilets gleam, showers sparkle, and overall kitchen area looks OKish. Got to wait until everyone is awake (yes, some are still in bed here), to finish up one bathroom, and for some cooking to end, to tidy up the kitchen. I’ll say half way there. 😅

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and we are hosting, like we do almost every year. This time around we are expecting 22 people, all family. As you can imagine, it is going to be a busy day. I am on clean up duty, before and afterwards. Yay! 😅 Still, happy to see a bunch of the family at once, and share a meal with them. As Horsie said, elders have their time left counted—but, don’t we all?—and we never know if we will be able to share a day again with them.

The ongoing HOA drama is annoying, and fatiguing me. I don’t know for how much longer I can hold to it. The dilemma is, no one wants to be on the board, so leaving it would probably make matters worse.

Fridays, just like Saturdays, Sundays, and Mondays, have a certain je ne sais quoi for most of us. Each day kind of different, I am sure you know what I am talking about. Today, Friday, is missing it for me.

CPAP machine company calls me to see how I am doing with it, and to ask a few questions. I say “I have not been able to get used to it, I will have to return it”. They ask me for my date of birth, and email address. I tell them “I didn’t call you, you did. You should have all the information on file, I see no reason to provide it to you now”. After exchanging pleasantries we discontinue the call.

I then call back, and ask for the steps to return the machine. I am asked for my full name, date of birth, and email address, to pull up my account. They say an RMA number, and a prepaid label for its return will be sent to me. I offer to save them money by returning it to the same place I picked it up. I can’t, they tell me. That place only dishes out new machines, and doesn’t take used ones back. OK then!

The highlight of the mornings I am forced to come to the office was that trance-like flickering light at the corner Walgreens. I always looked forward to seeing it as it had an amazing, calming, effect on me. Now is gone; someone had the bad idea to “fix” what wasn’t truly broken.

To make amends for this, mum called me last night. “Come help me eat some food”, she said. Funny, I was about to drive over her house to drop off a case of beer, and a bag of her favourite coffee. I guess we forgave each other. Food was good, and I brought a whole flan home. Maybe priests should visit more often.

Once again, organised religion is getting in my way. My very sacred Sunday morning with Mum and Ông, and our holy coffee time, has been excommunicated by the visit of “the priests”, as she wrote to me. Maybe I am a curmudgeon, but having someone visiting uninvited, and impromptu, doesn’t fly with me unless they are very close. I doubt these “fathers” are.

Due to my personality, I tend to be impulsive, and rather terse when answering to emails. That’s changing thanks to AI. LLM’s ability to rewrite emails and take away sarcasm and conveying my reasoning, all while keeping a professional and collaborative tone is very, very helpful.

I completely agree with the OP on this need for attention to details. I like it, and I try to adhere to it as much as I can. See the #elders tag, for example. Compare it to the #family tag. See the “1 note”, and the “5 notes”. A small detail, but it shows caring.

➝ Via Hacker News.

With 1°C (feels -6°C) temperatures today is, by far and so far, the coldest day of the year around here. Horsie freezes. I am already dressed with my shorts and tshirt to go grab coffee at mum’s, and go walking with ông. Sun shines!

Having our driveway and sidewalk pressure washed today. Saw a teenager doing it for a neighbour last week and, knowing that a “friendly reminder” is coming our way from the HOA, decided that let someone else have the fun I had had for the last 25 years. So, he was hired to do so. I think $150 USD, after 25 years, is kind of a bargain, isn’t it?

Today, after much thought and deliberation, I re-subscribed to The New York Times. It was hard to pass their $50/year offer, as I have been consuming it more and more through archive.today. One of the first things I did was to install their iOS application, and from it comes my first complaint: the amount of ads on it is distasteful. So much that I will probably mostly use the web version, as I can eliminate them fully that way.

Just a little note to record that my first night with the CPAP/APAP machine was horrible. It reminded me when I had the sleep study, all wired up. Well, no wires this time, but so very uncomfortable! I am sure this will not be the last I will note on this.

Finally, today I became the “proud” owner of an AirSense 11 CPAP machine. I have heard wonderful things about what a machine like this does to your sleep, so I am looking forward to getting used to it, and reaping its benefits. Mind it, using it is not a choice of my own; my doctor strongly recommended I do. So, here we go!

Over a month after this note, and I still continue to do it. I even caught myself conciously doing it. This lack of control over something so simple is driving me nuts. I might need to start meditating…

I told person A that I will be signing the papers later today but that, before I did so, wanted to know why two seemingly identical emails were sent to me by person B. The answer? “Person B accidently hit the send button twice.” What in the world?! How do you do that?

If anything “good” has happened from being mandated to come to office on Wednesdays that’s bagels. Today’s are still warm, and so delicious! I wrote good between quotes, because, well, carbs. 😅

Last year we placed a bowl full on candies, and left the porch light on, as an indication that Halloween was “happening”. Not a single kid, or adult, showed up. All candies were donated to work. This year there will be no candies, and light will remain off. Halloween is off.

So far having a fairly bad experience while trying to get a PAP machine ordered after having gone through a sleep study. I received an email from them stating the order was sent, while neglecting to send it. At square one now, a month after receiving the email. Ugh!

When I grow up, or in my second life if I get unlucky to reincarnate as a human (aiming to be a bird, though, but I digress), I want to be like Ariel.

“Best recent change I’ve done to improve my health: starting the work week on Tuesday and ending it on Thursday.”

➝ Via @ariel.

Often times when I am driving, or not on the desktop, notes come across my mind, but never make it here. Why? More often than not, I simply forget. With that in mind I am considering recording notes, if anyhing so that I can remember them later on.

Last night was “The Bourne Ultimatum” (★★★★★) night. There is no doubt, in my opinion, that this is the best movie of the original trilogy. That’s not to say the previous two were bad—after all, I rated the three the same—but this last one takes the first prize.

Even thought I went to bed late because of it, watching the movie wasn’t the reason for my 83 sleep score. Allegedly I woke up 7 times during the night, which is pretty disastrous.

That dreadful random time on a Sunday when it suddenly sinks in that tomorrow is, yet another, back to work day. 😩

An old underwear, just like any other old cloth, is very comfy to wear. I am sure you know what I am talking about. Yet, as with everything else in life, they have a finite shelf life. So, as I threw an old one away today, I remembered what my mum once told me:

“Always make sure to wear a new underwear when you go out, in case something happens to you, and are taken to a hospital. You don’t want to be ashamed having found wearing an old, beat up, one, do you?”

I never challenged her advise; I simply listened and nodded. I am absolutely sure, though, that if found in such situation, that would be the least of my worries.

I am having a not-so-first world problem. Nine out of ten, when I go out for an outdoor walk, I forget to start the workout either on phone, or watch. The watch, on its infinite wisdom sometimes reminds me, or prompts me to start it—notice the emphasis in sometimes. Is there an easy trick to get a workout going, other than starting (and stopping) it manually?

There are “other me” (that is, people with the same first and lastname as me) in Colombia, Peru, Argentina, Spain, all using first.lastname@gmail.com (which is mine) on all sort of things: bank accounts, mobile services, soccer clubs, social media, you name it! Is it that they are so non-technically saavy that they provide an email they don’t own, or is it that companies are assuming—as default—their email address is first and lastname, at gmail.com? Truly mind blowing.

Always point the finger at you first. “Is the issue at my end?” “What did I do that caused this?” Only after analising everything, and when the level of certainty has reached a 95% (your number may vary) that it isn’t your fault, your issue, then you look elsewhere (aka “pointing fingers at others”). That is, you know, “everything is my fault” first.

I have failed at this. Like, miserably. I feel powerless against myself. I shall try much, much harder! Perhaps enlist family, and work mates to help? “Hey, smack me if you see me chewing the inners of my mouth!” That could work, right?

Call me old school, boomer, curmudgeon, whatever! I, for one, have absolutely no interest, no desire, to carry a foldable mobile device, of any kind. OK, moving on now.

I am struggling trying to get me stop biting the inside of my mouth. You know, like gnawing the skin inside of it. I almost got it once, but subconsciously went back at it again. It bothers me greatly. Today I am starting once more.

Update: 01 Oct 2025 @ 20:34:00

Caught myself again at it. Stop biting your mouth! (ala General Bethlehem (third comment), on “The Postman”.

Only three days on the Star of the Seas, and we all want to go back to be cruising. Oh, and certainly do not want to be at work! LOL. Oh well, it is what it is.

Rob, our crazy—his own words, not mine—ex-coworker and friend came by the office today. He talked shit about Trump, and Fanny Mae, but we truly enjoyed his visit. We love Rob!

Brought some kisses to the office, and without showing them to anyone I asked: “Does anyone wants a kiss?”. One of my cubemates was fast to reply: “Not from you!” 😂

Schwab almost gave us a heart attack, when we saw half of our account gone at the end of the trade day today. Then this “urgent” message popped:

Account balance information may be inaccurate.
“Certain online account information may be inaccurate. Please accept our apologies as our teams work to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. For assistance, please call us at 800-435-4000.”

Yo, mates, come on! 🩺

Some will say the weekend starts when you close the “work shop”. I see the start of the weekend as something unimportant, but agree with the previous. The real issue is how to slow it [the weekend] down. Its end? Ah, yes, when you clock in again.

Even though Haagen-Dazs reduced their 1 pint (16oz) to 14oz in 2009—yes, 16 years ago—there is an ongoing mention of it on social media as if it just happened. Taking things like this from social media as face value, as recent “news”, and without further research, is truly bad.

While keeping my account active, I got rid of the Threads application on my mobile device, as a first step. Really tired to fine tunning notifications and still getting them, seemingly randomly, for things, or people I don’t know. Next step is to delete the account—which will also close my dormant Instagram.

Now $3,000 poorer, that double pain is behind me. To make me feel better, Mother Nature has decided to bless us with rain. She knows I love it. I only need some sleep. Soon.