Start of nothing good

The day dawned with a pee and it was dark and ugly and scary.  I made my way to the ER and they got me in right away and got things started.  Lots of questions and finally after quite a while the ER Doctor ordered a CAT scan.  Then I waited around for a while and they told me three things: Kidney stones, Bladder thickening and a nodule on my left lung.  He gave me a prescription for Cipro and referred me to a Lutheran Urologist and said to see my family doctor to discuss the nodule.  Of course this terrified me.  So here we go down the road of getting old and living a fairly pain free life with no major operations or surgeries. The good news was that the rest of the tests came out positive for liver and kidneys and for that I should be happy.

Here is what is forcast for us tonight and tomorrow.  I filled the car with gas and guess I should have done the same for the truck.  Luckily a month ago I got the snow blower running so it may start when I need it but it will take a mighty tug.  Three to eight inches of snow is predicted.

Thermonic Valves

My introduction into the electronic era was through these device and the shocks I received from time to time. Almost anyone can understand the basic premise of amplification and this is a good WWII Training film.

Sapiens – A Brief History of Humankind

Day 1: 12/08/2016

I am reading a thought provoking book by Yuval Noah Harari called “Sapiens – A Brief History of Humankind”.  I have had a love / hate relationship with this book and have put it down many times in disgust.  However, eventually, I pick it up and start reading again after my reason for disgust has been forgotten.  There can be no doubt this guy Yuval is a knowledgeable guy and has done a large amount of research.  I have reached a particularly poignant point in the book, my page 288, called Knowledge is Power.  Just that title caused me to press on and read more with ever increasing interest.  The name of the whole chapter that I am reading is called The Discovery of Ignorance and, so far, I found the whole chapter to be thought provoking.  So much so, I woke up about 0530 think about this chapter: It helps that I have always fancied myself to be a scientist and from an early age performed experiments and documented the results.

I think I now see the Yin and Yang of the world as a whole.  There is religion, Yin, that promises a life after death and science, Yang, that promises eternal e-life ( a condition in which there is no death of the body except accidental death).  This is causing me to think of what is the greater good is for humanity.  Or should humanity just be a test tube of swirling debris with no real order?  In any case, I shall have to re-read the book as a whole and in particular, this chapter which I have yet to finish. There are so many thoughts swirling in my head that i cannot organize them into a coherent pattern that would lead me to some conclusion or another.  As soon as I fully awake all this insight will be gone and I will have only this writing to remind me of the thoughts I had in the early morning awakening.

One thought is of a valued friends question of a few days ago: She thought it was worthless pointless to continue extending life when the Earth is already inundated with human life that threatens to terminate all life on the planet, the 6th great epoch of “great dying”, during which, more than 75% of all life on this planet just disappears ( I am concurrently reading a book “Scatter, Adapt, And Remember” by Annalee Newitz). How do you answer this question?  I have thought on occasion that a big war would sort of be good for nature and the Earth.  I really this thinking on my part was sort of faulty since only humans have the extended capacity to really enjoy the beauty of nature.  So, I guess that leaves us with science and technology to sort things out, whereby, e-life has to reach a balance of sustainability with what is available on Earth to sustain it.  For me, I guess it is a mote point since I will probably not live long enough to benefit from e-life so my only recourse is religion and the promises of Christianity.

Being awake is bringing me down to Earth so to speak and the insights of the clear thoughts of sleep dreams are disappearing so I had better terminate this blog and go up and get something to eat to satisfy the primal instinct of hunger.  If I get any clear or additional insight I will add to this blog as an addendum.

Day 2: The Future

Fremont Community Church & other

I was up about 0630 this morning but lazed around in the recliner until 0730  then got up to start the porridge and coffee.  All this activity was finished about 0830 and I cruised the net, looking for nothing in particular, and then got dressed withe objective of going to FCC to fix a few items that appear broken.  Actually, the items were the kick down door stops and these seem to take a beating at the church.  I actually got to the church about 1200 hrs and was back at home at 1400 hrs.  I went to Amazon and this time I did have something to order: replacement feet for the kick stops and some white non-skid for the floor.  The door stops seem to slide on the waxed tile floors so I got som of the non-skid to add a bit og grit for the door stops the rub against.  I have spent about $50 so far on this little project so that will be the tithe for this week.

The Silverado is having a heater issue so I took that in for a diagnosis and it turned out to be the heater core.  This is about a $600 item so I guess I will not fix it but it sort of ends the utility of the vehicle in the winter.  Most everything else works so it seems a shame but everything wears out and it is her time to be worn out at 230,000 miles.