A few weeks ago I was having an online conversation with an old friend. I forget where the conversation started, but it ended with me trying to explain that with a monthly food budget of about $200-250, it's hard to eat as healthy as I'd like, especially in the winter-time.

There's a lot that goes into making my food purchasing decisions. It's not just price that's involved, it's also things like "how long will this last" and "how much does it weigh". The latter becomes important because there is only so much I can carry at once with my left hand, which is notable for frequently dropping things and not being able to maintain a strong 'grip'. What's my right hand doing? Why, beating you over the head with the cane, of course.

I'm not as critically poor as I have been. I don't rely on food stamps to eat anymore, and I can even sock away enough to go out to dinner once a month at a place with forks and knives (or chopsticks (-:) and non-disposable plates. And I'm able to put little bits of money away for other expenses, like the van.

So during this conversation, I was trying to point out that weight loss is not as simple as food goes in -> is processed. There are many more factors involved. But this person is an engineer and can only understand that physics says that if mass is consumed there can only be a resultant energy. You eat, you either burn off the calories or it becomes fat.

Human bodies aren't like that. For example, when you run a plain old motor, it takes it's fuel (battery, petroleum, electricity, whatever) and puts out energy. End of discussion.

But a human body has more factors involved. Fat storage is regulated and maintained by a variety of things, and can be tripped up by a bigger variety of things. You can continue to eat and exercise as you normally do and become depressed, and you will suddenly start gaining weight. The old belief was that "depressed people eat more" but the reality is that depressed people often eat *less*, and that even if the amount of food doesn't change, the brain seems to be sending signals that encourage fat storage because clearly something is wrong. (This "something is wrong, store fat!" mechanism is a zillion years old. Those who can store fat will be more likely to survive plagues and famines.)

But wait, it gets worse -- those who are prescribed anti-depressants are even more likely to gain weight. Again, correcting for those who continue to eat and exercise the same, people who take anti-depressants are very likely to gain weight, possibly from an increase in glucose resistance. [Here's one study that shows a correlation (yes, not a causation): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17194277. I found outdated links to other studies, grrr. But they're out there.]

And there's so much more to decide about whether - and how- food is burned or stored. Different foods are broken down by different enzymes and hormones. People without gall bladders may have a harder time processing some fats. Various diseases can affect how much of various hormones are released. Low thyroid hormone can change your body's ability to break down food efficiently, and diabetes can cause your stomach to quite literally slow down, causing all sorts of mayhem. And that's just a few examples.

When I tried to point out these things, my friend asked the inevitable question that doctors love to cough up: "But what if you ate 20% less?" (He's not a Dr, he's married to one.)

The result of this is that I started counting calories. (This has caused various mental health issues we won't even get into right now.) I wanted to see just how may horrible calories I was consuming in the average day.

I will state this up front -- I do not eat in a healthy manner. Properly I would be eating 2-4 small meals in a day, better to help keep the blood sugars stable.

I don't. In a bad habit developed when I was doing things like making a week's worth of food last 3-4 weeks, I tend to eat one meal a day, and it (as itself) is very high calorie. Nearly every meal I eat is about 1000-1500 calories. 2000 calories a day is generally considered a normal day's intake for a female.

So here I am eating about 1200 calories a day. What's 20% less of that?

Starvation. Generally, anything under 1000 calories a day is considered a starvation diet.

Now, I'm sure someone is going to pull out the "studies" that claim that eating very low calorie diets produce longer life. Except for one problem. The studies are bunk. [http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2009/07/calorie-restrictive-eating-for-longer.html says it better than I can].

Oh, two problems. The claimed studies were all done on mice and rats. Mice and rats do not have the nutritional needs of humans.

This post has Dreamwidth cooties and was originally infected at http://moose.dreamwidth.org/1343.html.

I've mentioned before that I'm a regular reader of a 'blog' by one Dr Grumpy, a neurologist, who shares his office suite with a doctor in another type of practice, a Dr Pissy.

A couple of months ago, Dr Grumpy posted a hilarious tale of a tech assistant to an Orthopedic Surgeon who couldn't understand why every doctor doesn't have a bone saw in their practice. Apparently the guy looked like some cross between a hippie and a Dr Seuss character, and when the bone saw (the saw used to remove casts) broke, floundered at trying to figure out what to do next. The tale started out by stating that the Orthopedist occasionally rents office space "from Dr Pissy and I".

Some people get zorked out by the whole "your/you're" thing. Me/I is the one that drives me bonkers. I've called Dr Grumpy on this before, but it has continued. So that time I took it head on:

OH, the people you'll meet when your cast must come off
From the shiny new doctor to the tech toss off
But sometimes your visit may go so awry
When the bone saw breaks down with a heart wrenching cry
The tech guy will seek for a new saw to use
While you sit kerfluffled and waiting for news
Dear Grumpy! Dear Pissy! the tech guy will beg
Please lend me your saw so I can free this poor leg!
But alas there's no saw nearby to be found
The tech guy will worry! He'll panic, by zound!
And so now your cast will stay on one more day
Which lends me the time to remind and say
I've told you before, you grammarless Grumpy
Remove the [and someone] - it's Pissy and ME
A father and doctor excel at you may
But that basic grammar just keeps you at bay


Today Dr Grumpy posted the tale of a nice lady who confused her lunch bag with a present for the office staff. Sure enough, it started out that she "always brings a small present for my staff and I". So I left the following:


I have tried the Seuss
Rhymes and many jokes, but still
You still get it wrong

At this point I guess
You must do it on purpose
to poke at my brain

Mrs Gift brings the
small present for staff and ME
not *I*, you doofus

Perhaps this haiku
will get through your thick, dense skull
A Moose can dream, no?

A final verse says
the required final line
Plastic Bear Vomit



I got an email response with the subject heading
WELL, EXCUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUSE ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!
inside was a picture of Steve Martin holding up a huge pair of underwear

After I stopped laughing my head off, I replied, "How did he get a pair of my undies?"
Dr Grumpy responded that he had no idea, he just grabbed the first image off of Google Images.

Oh look, there's another round of "Gay kids are being bullied and killing themselves!" It's a horrible, horrible thing, and a terrible tragedy.

Fat kids are more common than gay kids and get just as bullied. And then they commit suicide, too.

Where's all the "It gets better" for fat kids? Where's all the outcry for all the dead fat children? Where's the call to stop the bullying of fat children?

Oh, wait. It doesn't exist -- because our government supports bullying fat children. There are schools where children are regularly (publicly) weighed, where if a child is determined to be too fat (or thin) note are sent to the parents (I've seen this happen), where the food police is concerned more with what a child brings to eat from home than what it serves in its own cafeteria. And let us not forget that our own First Lady is campaigning against "childhood obesity" -- because nothing solves a problem with children more than making them the object of stigma.

But wait! We're doing it for their HEALTH! Everyone Knows that being fat is unhealthy! It's correlated with heart disease and other horrible things! There's a rise in children being diagnosed as type II diabetes, which Everyone Knows is caused by being fat! These fat children are found to have high cholesterol levels!

Except that there's almost no scientific proof that being fat is unhealthy. What few studies exist to back up claims ... aren't even real studies. They're data-mined, where they take another study and use its data to prove their point. The problem with doing this is that you get to pick and choose the data you use.

Except that correlations (aka "there's a link between") aren't causation. I can prove to you that an increase in people getting the flu yesterday is linked to the Facebook IPO. REAL science doesn't work this way. If you find a link you can do further research to see if the link is valid. So far, links between weight and various diseases are tenuous, at best.

Except that longetivity is best for those who fit in the BMI range of "obese." There's a lot of stuff out there claiming that "moderate obesity cuts years off your life." At my BMI [something around 28359832, I think], statistics say I may live about 6 months less than if I were "normal." (That changes, of course, if you're a smoker. Then I'd be losing about 10+ yrs.)

Except that even if there is a rise in children being diagnosed with type II diabetes, it doesn't mean weight is to blame. Except .. it's a complete myth. A couple of studies were done in very select, very risk-prone groups. When scientists specifically solicited groups of otherwise healthy fat kids to test, they found a normal rate of type II diabetes. (Yes, it's normal for it to occasionally happen in children, just as it's normal for people over 30 to develop type I diabetes.)

As for finding high cholesterol levels in children -- it's not yet clear (still!!) what actual role blood cholesterols have on health, despite all the panic otherwise. There's a lot of links (see above), but nothing is yet concrete. That's doubly so for women, as until fairly recently any studies done have been on men. As for children -- until very recently nobody has been checking children's cholesterol levels, so how do we know it's a problem for them, when we have no history to compare it to?

Bullying fat kids - and adults - is a common practice. Fat jokes are still the mainstay of our culture. Nobody thinks twice about using hurtful words. If you call a person fat, even if they are, it's often taken as badly as if it were a racial slur.

Part of what we do is as a society stop harping over our looks.

Part of what we do is to stop ALL bullying, and that includes government sponsored bullying. Enough already.

Years ago, I had more men friends than women. Somewhere along the way that changed. Finding all the geek females in my life has made things so much more amazing.

Part of this Ada Day is to name names. Here we go.


I have to throw the ball back at Beth Lynn Eicher. She is one of the original board members of the Ohio LinuxFest Corporation, the folks who back the Ohio LinuxFest, a huge grassroots conference all about Free & Open Source Software. The conference was once a meeting of all Linux User Groups in Ohio. It wouldn't be the event it is today without Beth Lynn. This event is hers.

I first met Beth Lynn when she was a student grunt hired to play with Linux in the Systems group at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center. She had that "willing to try anything" attitude that made me tired. (She still has way too much energy.) She eventually became a sysadmin herself.

For a while we organized a local sysadmin user group organization. It fell apart after a while, because it was a lot of work for one person and I was getting sicker. But somehow I got dragged into working on the Ohio LinuxFest.

She and I have a weird rhythm to working together. I've taken to calling it a Ying/Yang thing. She thinks up a wild idea, I come up with the more down-to-earth part that need to be worked out. I come up with an idea, she brainstorms out of the box and out of the warehouse on how to do it. I drop the puck, she shoots and scores. I wiggle and she waggles. We mesh together so well to get things done!

We've been a pile of things over the years: colleagues, boss & underling, co-conspirators, co-confidants, or just plain friends. She's more in tune with the Linux world than me (I prefer BSD and frequently use [*gasp*] Windows!). She knows all sorts of people in the industry that I don't.

She's the best.

There are too many others to list, so I'll mention some and get flamed by the ones I miss:

All the (other) hardcore geek women I've met through OLF: Rikki Kite, Amber Graner, Maco Mackenzie, Carol R, Mel Chua, Karlie Robinson, Dru Lavigne, SigFLUP, Catherine Devlin, Elizabeth Garbee, and many more.

My other friend Beth, officially a technical writer, but who does all sorts of things thrown at her and so amazingly well. She's a testament to how some people can learn anything - and do so with talent.

My two favorite math geeks, Camilla and Alycia, who both think complex math problems are things you do when you're bored.

All the geek women of D&E: Aleecia, Karen, Fleur, Cheryl, and the other Cheryl. We've held the line against the testosterone for many years.

Sidra & Arrow, who chair the systems committee for the Organization for Transformative Works, where I'm allowed to practice the two sysadmin skills I have left.

I won't out the (at least) four transgender geek women I know, three of whom only recently came out as such. But they show that geek women don't have to be bio female, and they're way cool.

All the geek women who I've known as undergrads at CMU, especially from ABTech, including: Maya, who set, and hit, her goal to get a MFA on top of her CS undergrad degree so she could design code of computerized lighting boards. Meg, who went from shy undergrad to sysadmin, programmer and teacher, who last I heard is in Qatar doing at least two of them. Lindsay, the Geek Logician. Sam, Carla, Clara, Jen, and more.

All the ex-professionally-geek women who are still geeks at heart, among them: Dee, who became a nurse; Yerin, who became a PA; Pat, who will soon be a lawyer.

and the hundreds I'm missing, who can all flame me now.

This post has Dreamwidth cooties and was originally infected at http://moose.dreamwidth.org/1219.html.

I went to the office in Belleville, thinking it would be less crowded than the others I've tried. Walked in to find it packed. Someone giving up handed me their take-a-number ticket, #01. Current number: 66. I count only 25 people in the room. It is 10:30AM

The "returns" line keeps getting more people, which is strange because they're taking almost no regular people. I wonder if people are cheating by using the "returns" line but it turns out you have to have a pink ticket. They call number 68. It is 10:55AM.

A clerk asks everyone who is only doing a renewal to get into a special "express" line, in order of their ticket. 12 or so people line up against a wall. The first person gets taken, then the clerk starts taking people from the returns line. So much for express. The guy next to me gives up, he needs to get to work, and gives me his ticket, #96. They call #77. It is 11:25AM.

A family comes in with a young girl and a rambunctious but adorable 2 yr old boy. After finding out that everyone around me has numbers lower than mine, I give them my #01 ticket. Because of the people who have either given up or gone into the "express" line they flit through numbers, and after a bit they reach #85. Only one more person from the "express" line has actually been helped. It is 11:45AM.

They call #96. Just as I stand up, the guy at the front of the "express" line comes over yelling about how he is #89 and they will serve him Right! Now! Dammit! because he's tired of waiting, so they do. I sit back down. It is 12:10PM.

They call #96 again. The next people in the "express" line, seeing what #89 did, try to push in front of me. This clerk rebuffs them and sends them back by the time I toddle up there. It is now 12:25PM.

I fill out the paperwork for the "enhanced" license, which includes showing them proof of SSN and my birth certificate. They tell me someone has to quiz me about "my papers." Another clerk comes over and picks up my birth certificate and asks me my mother's maiden name. Hand that over. Then she asks where I was born. I say, $village, where the hospital is. She looks at me funny. I say, Oh, does it say place-where-parents-were-living-then? She looks at me even stranger. Then I remember, crazy NY, you live in the village (or hamlet) of something, which is part of the town of something (which is then in a county). So I ask if it says $Town-village-is-in. She smiles and nods. I curse the state of New York.

I'm then marched over for a new picture. By this point my left leg is no longer really attached to my body (I think it's sunning itself on a beach somewhere) and my spine is considering following suit. The first picture they take my eyes are closed. A 2nd picture is taken.

$154 later, I've renewed the registration for the minnow and filed for an "enhanced" drivers license, which will arrive in the postal mail in about 2 weeks. I sit back down for a moment, then put my new reg sticker on the van, and climb aboard. It is now 12:50pm.

LOPSA is in the process of elections for the new Board. As part of it they are holding online "talk to the candidate" sessions via IRC.

This morning I got a 'member update' email proclaiming that first of these sessions was a "big success." So I popped on over to lopsa's website to read the logs.

The first question asked was by another woman, a friend, who queried, "Could the candidates comment on how they'd encourage greater participation of women and minorities in system administration?"

The answers were unsurprising.

The current Board president (the one who fired me, telling me the org was failing thanks to me) said: "Very much the same way as all currently underrepresented groups within our community, though the efforts needed are part of a classic chick/egg problem. With lower current representation, those not currently members that I have spoken with are not sure they would feel welcome, and getting those smaller groups to have a more front-and-center representation is dependent on those people joining."

A new candidate stated: "i feel that by focusing on these groups you or anyone just further perpetuates the myth that a sexual or racial minority need special treatment, so i can't say i'd really do anything differently than i would for the typical sys admin demographic."

Classic.

Some of the candidates did better than others. I consider two of them to be good friends and they did handle themselves better than the others, although their feet occasionally seemed to slip towards an open mouth.

The irony of one of the two female candidates (only one took part in this) stating that "women need to have leadership roles in LOPSA" is not lost on me. I do not believe I know this woman.

You can read the whole thing yourself here: https://lopsa.org/content/lopsa-live-may-12-2011-candidate-forum-transcript. Another "meet the candidates" IRC session is scheduled for May 24. Details, and the logs afterwards, are available on lopsa.org.

ETA: I do know the woman in question, and she has now explicitly explained to me that she's never seen any problems with women in the org, so they must not exist. Also that any problems I've had have been because I'm "very negative" -- something she "knows" from what she's seen me type in an IRC channel.

I am back in MI after spending about 10 days in Pittsburgh. Part of that time was spent trying to find housing so I can move back.

Well, that idea's gone.

The first place I looked at was in a tiny little hamlet outside of McKeesport. Really nice, lots of trees, very pleasant. The place had been advertised in Craig's List as "Handicapped accessible." When I got there, it turned out there were two steps to get into the building. But, it was explained to me, "Once you're inside everything is on one level, your apartment, laundry, everything!"

One day I called between 15-20 apartment complexes in the city and some of the south and eastern suburbs. I asked them all, "I'm looking for a 1 or 2 bedroom apartment with NO stairs or steps anywhere." Two places outright laughed at me. "No stairs? In Pittsburgh?!?" A whopping two insisted they had accessible apartments.

When I got to the first there was a step from the parking lot to the building. I was using a mobility scooter [more on THAT mess in another post] and getting it up that step was just fun. Regular doors were a struggle. On the bright side of this place, there were two elevators, and laundry on the same floor as the apartments. But every apartment had a big metal lip which was hard to get over.

The 2nd place had no steps anywhere I could see, from the parking lot to the front door. But I couldn't get into the front door! It was a slightly-wider-than-normal doorframe, with TWO doors set into it. The only way I could get the scooter in was to open both doors -- something there was no way I could do by myself.

By that point I was pretty much giving up. Oh, and yes, the Housing Authority of Pittsburgh and other organizations do have some number of accessible housing available. They all have 2-3 yr waiting lists.

On the other hand, if you're over 62 there is accessible senior housing available right now. Apparently there are so many seniors in Pgh that the senior housing market is booming.

And then the crowning situation occurred.

Just before leaving town I went to the Church Brew Works with a friend. Now, I have always loved this place. It was my default place to take people from out of town, because it's so neat. (For those not in Pgh, it's a former Catholic church that was deconsecrated and slated for demolition, but saved by people who turned it into a nifty brew pub.)

The regular bathroom (well, at least the women's bathroom) has stairs inside of it, so they built a handicapped bathroom in one of the corners of the building, near the entrance, between the wall and the end of the bar. It's a long, spacious room. When I went to go use it ... it was locked.

Handicapped people get used to having to wait for the handicapped stall. It's usually not a big deal. A lot of restaurants put the baby changing thing in there, and sometimes when it's busy there's no reason not to use the open stall. Yeah, occasionally there's some jerk who uses it when things are quiet for selfish reasons (my all time favorite being, "I like the extra room!") So I patiently, if a little painfully, stood waiting. After about a minute one of the people at the bar said, "Nobody's gone in there. I think they keep it locked so only the staff and disabled people can use it. Ask the bartender." But there was no bartender around, and the only sign on the door said something like, "Please leave this bathroom for disabled people only!" So I hobbled back over to the hostess stand. [I didn't have the scooter.]

At the stand I asked for the manager, who came over after a few minutes. I explained to her that keeping the handicapped bathroom locked was inappropriate and unacceptable. She told me, in a voice implying that I was fairly stupid, that this was being done so only disabled people could it. When I told her that she was requiring me to ask to go to pee, she insisted that they were "doing it for people like YOU!", then asked if I needed the restroom. I said yes, that was the point. She told the hostess to go unlock the bathroom for me, and stalked off, frowning at the stupid disabled person unable to understand how they were doing this For My Own Good.


I have no idea what their real issue is. Drunks going in there and passing out? People having sex? Some handicapped person whined because an able-bodied person used it? I don't know.

I don't care.

Part of the issue with accessibility is that, like everything else in life, it's not perfect. Able-bodied people are going to use the handicapped bathroom, the same way they're gonna park in the handicapped parking spots ("But it's just for a minute!"). You can't stop selfish jerks.

So, yeah. I really don't want to move back to a city that laughs at the idea of having accessible housing, barely understands what it is, and thinks disabled people need special protecting.

ETA 1: Forgot to mention the motel -- Due to a fight with a fold-out couch (don't ask) I wound up spending a couple of nights at the Red Roof in Moronville. They have *wonderful* accessible rooms -- low bed, roll-in showers, just great. Except... to get to the office in a wheelchair/scooter, you have to go most of the way down the building and then all the way back. All *three* sides of the building have steps!!

ETA 2: Also, this was submitted to Blogging Against Disability Day.

I got out of the house today, for the first time since January 7th.

There's pretty much no snow left. Just in case I took a little baggie of ice-melt with me, in a jacket pocket. My neighbor across the sidewalk doesn't get much direct sunlight so her grass is all snow, and there are HUGE piles in the parking lot.

The van started on the first try, no whining or complaints, just VROOM! I pin this mainly on a) parking it so the front sees the sun most of the day, as well as getting an oil change and filling the tank the last time I drove it.

So what did I do with my grand afternoon out? Pretty much nothing. I went to a Timmy's for iced coffee and a Culver's for a reuben and a salad and sat in a parking lot, in the sun, reading the book I've been unable to read for days. I'd almost forgotten that, sitting in the car, I can prop a (hardcover) book on the steering wheel so I don't have to hold it. Makes for easier reading while driving. [Kidding, I do not do that.]

I did go driving around a little bit. The lakes are still mostly frozen over, unsurprisingly. There was a ferocious wind out there, enough that the van rocked while holding still. On the brief time I was on the highway I didn't dare go over 65 [much to the disgust of the car drivers, who all drive like the 75 MPH speed limit is too slow], as the wind was blowing me everywhere.

Driving through Belleville I drove past the police station, where a cop with a LIDAR gun was checking cars. He sat in the driveway of the station. I torn between laughter at the seeming laziness of it, the realization that people probably do speed right past the station [it's in a section of 30 MPH in a mostly 45 MPH area], and the desire to go back and thank the officer and congratulate him on the "inventive" speed trap.

When I got home, the first thing I did was promptly spill the left over iced coffee all over the ground outside the van's door. Of course, the liquid and ice promptly stuck to the frozen ground, making it all slippery. Oh, the irony. But wait! I had the little baggie of ice melt! which I promptly scattered on the ground. Hopefully it 'took hold' before the wind blew it away.

It's really blowing quite hard out there. I swear I saw a kid with pig-tails go by screaming about her Auntie.

Tomorrow, I plan to go out again, this time to a stupidmarket. I am *gasp* OUT OF CHEESE [except for feta and shaker cheese, which are fine for some things, but not, ya know, CHEESE!].

For some weird reason, lots of snow inspires me to go into the kitchen and mess around for a while.

After consuming a giant cup of coffee [made with two pods of "Adrenaline Explosion" coffee], I dragged the laptop into the kitchen and 'watched' episodes of QI [series 2 ("B")], while I

- put 5 dried shiitake to soak in hot water, with another bowl of water on top to hold them under
- chopped 2 big bunches of green onions & put the results in a zipper-lock baggie
- hand shredded big heads of iceberg and romaine lettuces into a big bowl
- chopped into shreds the smaller half of a HUGE head of red cabbage and tossed it in the bowl
- tossed the bowl & then put the results into two well stuffed zipper-lock baggies
- chopped into shreds the rest of the HUGE head of red cabbage, which barely fit into a zipper-lock baggie

By this time the battery was getting low on the laptop and I'd watched 3 episodes of QI (so it'd been around an hour). Now I have some fresh, if boring, salad in the fridge. I also meant to spend time chopping some celery into baggies [they're all gallon sized, if you were wondering] for use in things like tuna salad but really, to do something that dull I need entertainment and it didn't seem worth the bother to go get the power brick just to do more chopping. And I was hungry.

Next up:

- pulled the mushrooms out of the hot water, squeezed the mushrooms, to get all the water out, into the water they were soaking in. Put the mushroom water into a zipper-lock baggie, which then went into the freezer. [Yummy in stock/soup, very rich flavor.]
- sliced off the stems and then sliced the mushrooms
- Put the noodles from one ramen package [Nong Shim, the *good* ramen] in some water made very hot by the Senseo
- heated a little bit of oil in a fairly non-stick frying pan
- when heated, tossed in a handful of those chopped green onions and some ginger [pre-chopped up, from a tube (yes, I know, but it's 'organic' so at least not over preservatived)] in, stirred it around until it smelled nice
- tossed in a half pound of raw piggy and the mushroom slices. stirred it around until it the piggy was showing signs of cooking on all sides, then added some soy sauce, oyster sauce and sesame oil, covered it, turned down the heat & let it comingle and finish cooking
- drained the noodles, threw the contents of the frying pan on top
- fed face

Yum.

I'm not completely sure what to do with the gallon baggie of red cabbage. I'm considering trying making haluskis [noodles & cabbage] with it but I don't know how well it will work with red cabbage.

I love reading all the stuff about the "new" astrological sign changes. You were once a this, now you're a that, or another thing. I fit that better, I'm definitely better as this, or if you're one friend, you say the hell with it and claim both.

In the "old" method I was born on or near the Leo/Virgo cusp (depending on where you counted the changeover). Virgos are supposed to be really organized, neat freaks, with a good memory. Not me. Leos are cheery extroverts who don't obsess over things. Not me.

I've decided to make my own astrological sign. I am: THE FRUITFLY.

You are a FRUITFLY too, if you are
- surrounded by junk
- constantly flitting from place to place, working on one thing one minute and another the next
- wondering if you're the object of someone's science experiment
- feeling the breeze as things appear to swat at you
- enjoying every day on it's own because you never know if or when you'll be squished
- attracted to bottles of wine, but wary of them because they might be a trap [Admiral Ackbar was a FRUITFLY]
- sometimes alone, but sometimes surrounded by lots of others
- interested in eating just about anything

Now to just get those dang astrologers to start casting my fortunes...

You may (or may not) know that I'm a big fan of Dr Grumpy. Dr Grumpy is a neurologist who writes with a quick and keen wit about his patients and his family life. I like his stuff, so much that not long after I discovered him I sat down one day and read every single post he'd written. It's also one of the few 'blogs' I read where the comments are almost always worth reading, likely because he (wisely) screens them all.

Dr Grumpy has posted about research published for things that seem absolutely obvious. His most recent one is about how a study of boxers showed that getting hit in the head a lot is bad for you. Another was how people don't sleep well in war zones. He always expresses shock! and surprise! at the findings. Likely it's done for humour value, but it always pokes me in the eye a little.


Years ago when I first started my diabetes mailing list one member was a very well informed young lady. It turned out she was a scientist by trade; at the start of the list she was finishing her Ph.D. in biomedical science and then went on to do post-doc work.

She was the encouragement for me and others to learn how to read medical journals for ourselves, to actually read the studies and not just buy into the press releases that make it into the mass media [or, sometimes, even medical journals], and she was the first (but not the last) to offer a point of view from the actual medical AND scientific point of view.

One day someone posted about a study not unlike this. It was relevant to the list, so it was likely something like, "Hypoglycemia can kill you." People said, "Geez, why do they do studies like this?"

She pointed out a very simple valid fact: Just because everyone knows it's so doesn't make it scientific fact.

The truth is, a lot of doctors depend on anecdotal data. How many times have you heard a doctor say, "I've seen a lot of patients who..." That may be true, but it is not scientifically valid data.

This is why real scientific studies are done with controls, because when your patient set is pre-selected you get a biased result. [This, in turn, is why I rally against all published research based on what is basically data mining. "We found data about XYZ in a study done about ABC" should only be able to be the groundwork for a real study, not considered a study on its own.]

I won't even get into the whole "doctors often seem to forget that correlation is not causation" rant... this time.



Let's take the boxing head injury study. Say you're a scientist who wants to do a research study, so you go to write up your grant proposal. You want to study what kind of damage is done when a boxer is repeatedly beaten on the head and whether it's reversible or treatable. So where do you start writing?

Here's a hint: You cannot write a grant proposal that starts off with "Everyone knows that..." unless you want to see it go straight into the recycle box.

So, yeah, the really stupid stuff DOES have to get researched. There's a lot of "fact" out there in medical journals that's based on published (in peer reviewed journals, no less!) articles that are based on "everybody knows." That stuff shouldn't fly, and it's a lot harder to get it to fly in a hard science journal.

Sometimes they have to go back and do the hard research on stuff that everyone has been taken for granted for years. Until it's hard fact, research based on it is, really, not very valid.

[Now Kim & the other scientists will chew my head off. :-)]

So, everytime I read about another "Everyone knows that" study, I remember the late, great, and incredibly missed Claire Meier, Ph.D.

(or, Sexism in LOPSA, part 3)

LOPSA members need to take back their organization before it's too late.

Recently a friend of mine had a chat with the current President of the LOPSA board at LISA (the biggest conference for system administrators).

When she brought up the issue of why I was fired from the Leadership Committee he told her (paraphrased) that when he called me it was to ask me to start recruiting volunteers and that I refused. He said that I have my own way of doing things and that I felt that "volunteers would get in the way" of that way.

If you read my previous post, linked above if you haven't, you might see that that is not at all how I recall things going. My recollection, mind you, comes straight from an email message I wrote within moments of the phone call. I'd be happy to publish said message.

Nevermind that that makes no sense. Any volunteers I'd be recruiting would be for other committees, not the Leadership Committee. And as it is, finding candidates to run for the LOPSA Board is finding volunteers.

I work very hard on the Ohio LinuxFest, a 3 day conference that is completely run by volunteers and depends on recruiting volunteers to keep it going.

Needless to say, I'm a little upset. Actually, this is killing me, not just because someone is telling outright lies about me, putting words into my mouth that I never said, which is a fine capper to the "LOPSA is failing and it's all your fault" from before.

I'm watching an organization that I helped build from the ground up fall to pieces. And the board of directors is blaming anyone but themselves for the problems.



Let's go back to the overall problem of sexism in LOPSA. In that same post linked above, I mentioned the problem of outright sexist behaviour LOPSA tolerates.

This summer, after I publicly brought up the issue in a "Meet the Board" IRC chat, they drafted and approved The Etiquette Policy policy.

It states guidelines. And then it says:
----------
Discipline
If a person violates the LOPSA Etiquette Policy, there will be at least one warning issued with possible more strict punitive measures depending on the medium or forum and nature of the infraction.
-----------

That's it. No means on how to report things. Nothing about who sets the "punitive measure." Nothing about how things really get resolved. I call Hand-Waving.



When my friend talked to the board President she told him that I saw the decision to fire me as a reflection of LOPSA's attitude towards diversity (I was promptly replaced by a man). He responded that there wasn't a diverse population in our profession. When she suggested that LOPSA should be aiming towards diversity as part of it's mission he gave her the old "this is how it's always been" speech, saying it goes back to schools. When she pointed out groups like SWE (Society of Women Engineers) are working to encourage girls in science, he called SWE sexist.

When I wrote the original posts on this subject I got very little response. Some folks were supportive, but others (in various places) responded with things like "I'm sorry this happened to you," which is typically a polite way of saying this happened to YOU, which, in turn, is a form of Your Problem Is Not Representative of Everyone. I also got a lot of "I'm shocked, I'm horrified, I'm not going to do a damn thing about it."

Sure, it happened to me -- this time. But if the LOPSA members -- especially the women -- don't start speaking up, this is just going to keep continuing to turn into Yet Another Male Organization For The Men.

LOPSA recently started a Mentoring program. As great as that is, just before it was announced the plans to start a Women in System Administration group within LOPSA faded away without a word. You do the math.

So what's the problem? LOPSA is supposed to be a professional organization to be the voice of system administrators. The next time someone brushes your words aside because of your gender, the next time you lose a job you're qualified for to a less qualified man, the next time you're passed over for promotion, the next time you get "mansplained" things you've long been an expert about, remember that a professional organization is supposed to be there for you, too.

They're not going to give a crap. Why should they? They're not the ones losing out.

Folks can brush this aside with, "boys will be boys," "nerds just don't know how to communicate" and "this is the way it's always been."

Women used to be sold as slaves and denied the right to vote. Until absurdly recently laws said that women could not be raped by their husbands. Because "that's the way it's always been." You take for granted today that these things cannot happen to you. This also goes back to another earlier post I made on Why It Matters. Someone had to fight for these rights. You can sit around waiting for things to change, or you can help make change.

Either dues-paying members of LOPSA take back the organization from a board who thinks that diversity doesn't matter, that there are no problems with women and sexism, that it's ok to tell lies about why you do outright unethical things, or we give up and start a new organization.

If we don't do something there will soon be nothing.

As I'm sure you've heard, people are calling for doing massive protests against the new TSA "show us your skin or get groped" guidelines during the US Thanksgiving weekend. One person is calling for it specifically to occur on Wednesday, Nov 24, the day before the US holiday.

This is, without a doubt, one of the stupidest things I've read about in ages. Why?

First of all, understand this -- I think the whole Security Theatre morass is a disaster area unto itself. They keep coming up with more and more foolish ideas in the name of security when at best it's just magical hand waving with no actual effect. You'd be more secure with that Potter guy waving his magic wand and uttering some idjitastic word.

So what's my beef with this "protest"? Simply this: The people who will be most directly affected by it are not the TSA, or even the airlines.

It's going to be the families juggling restless small children and baggage through the huge lines.

It's disabled people like me who always must request pat-downs because we cannot walk through metal detectors or any other scanners.

It's people at airports where you have to re-enter security to get to another gate who miss their flights during a weekend when they may not be able to get home for the holiday.

Should you protest this latest round of TSA bull? Hell, yes! But this is not the way to do it.

Write and call your CongressCritters. Tell them exactly what you think of the new TSA rules. Pay special attention to the ones just elected; they're looking to make a political name for themselves. Sometimes rocking the boat does just that.

You want to tell them how it should be done? If you missed it on Facebook, see this article on the way Israel handles airport security.

They don't profile based on the color of your skin, or what you wear, or outward religious garb or acts. They train people to profile based on behaviour. By simply asking basic questions and looking people in the eye they're capable of catching just about all problem people before they become problem incidents.

To change to this model would cost a lot of money. It would mean massive amounts of retraining, and paying TSA workers a real wage. It would mean having effective management who is capable of recognizing where there are problems and retraining or removing bad workers.

But the up-front expenditure of tax dollars would mean a safer USA without removing basic civil rights and simple dignity.

Encourage people to start protesting NOW and keep going until there is change. This needs to happen every day, not just one single day. How many people do I know who travel for business regularly? A lot. How many of them would not want to protest like this because they might miss a connecting flight or get to a destination on time? I would hope none of them, and I'm probably wrong. And anyone who would refuse to do a protest regularly because it's inconvenient *for them* isn't much of a protester anyway.

Really, all this protest is doing is having people say, "LOOK AT ME, I'M MORE IMPORTANT THAN OTHER PEOPLE!" Because I bet you the large majority of people who do this on 11/24 will not do it again on their return trip home.

Today I was told this gem:

Sugar depletes the body of critical nutrients (because it requires the body to dip into its reserve supply of vitamin to digest it). People who die of heart disease consistently show low levels of chromium in their clogged arteries, and chromium is a mineral necessary for metabolizing sugar. Sugar steals nutrients from the body while providing none. This is why people can eat several donuts for breakfast and feel so hungry again just an hour later. The ingestion of sugar leaves the body more hungry afterwards ironically, than it was before. Eating large amounts of sugar repeatedly over a short time taxes the pancreas and seems to produce excess insulin that can result in hypoglycemia in some people.

OK, really.

Sugar requires the body to dip into its reserve supply of vitamin to digest it.

So, what he's saying is that sugar is somehow some magical special thing that requires extra vitamins to digest. There is a teeny bit of truth here. See below.

People who die of heart disease consistently show low levels of chromium in their clogged arteries and chromium is a mineral necessary for metabolizing sugar.

First of all, the A->B logic is so wrong here it breaks my brain. What he's claiming is, since these people (allegedly) have low levels of chromium, it must happen from trying to break down sugar, because chromium is needed to break down sugar.

There is a cause & effect between chromium and glucose intolerance, but not that chromium causes glucose problems. It's that people who are low in chromium may develop glucose intolerance, which is quickly reversed by (usually) a small diet change to get more chromium.

There are a lot more vitamins and minerals that work with sugar breakdown, including manganese and B vitamins. One site I found claims that *excess* sugar can cause a B1 depletion, but B1 is easily found in a health diet.

As for the heart attack link -- in 2005 a study claimed a link between low chromium levels in the blood and men having heart attacks. [that's men, not women.] There is nothing, anywhere, to say that there is any link between clogged arteries and chromium and heart attacks. "Clogged arteries" can occur for a number of reasons; it's not clear what role cholesterol plays, especially in women. Repeated studies are now showing that women who survive the longest after heart attacks have cholesterol & triglyceride levels that are considered deadly in men.

So what really causes chromium deficiency? Here's what the National Institute for Health says. There is some belief that a very high sugar diet might contribute to it. But the most common cause seems to be -- stress! Gee, that thing you might have when you have a heart attack. Remember all those times you've heard "he's stressed himself into a heart attack?" Yeah.

Sugar steals nutrients from the body while providing none.

Bunk. A carb is a carb is a carb, which is why so many diabetics do "carb counting" to figure their insulin dose. While a carb in a fibrous form, for example, may break down slower than, say, a glass of juice, it's still a carbohydrate.

Carbohydrates are critical as fuel for the body and for breakdown of other foods. Low carb diets can work for short term weight loss and can cause positive changes in cholesterol levels. Interestingly studies show that high carb diets can work for short term weight loss and cause positive changes in cholesterol levels.

What does this mean? The same thing I keep saying: We are not made from cookie cutters. What works for you may not work for someone else. Sugars are just a carb. What makes a piece of white bread 'empty calories' vs. a big juicy orange? Both have a glycemic index of 50. One has more vitamins and some fiber. That's it. The bread is not made of evil things that are going to destroy your body.

This is why people can eat several donuts for breakfast and feel so hungry again just an hour later. The ingestion of sugar leaves the body more hungry afterwards ironically, than it was before.

In people with impaired glucose tolerance, eating a lot of carbs can cause an insulin dump [ie. an insulin release that's more than is needed]. Unused insulin in the bloodstream triggers the "feed me" hunger mechanism. This is why one of the symptoms of diabetes is insatiable hunger.

Plenty of people with no glucose problems can eat donuts and not be hungry an hour later.

Eating large amounts of sugar repeatedly over a short time taxes the pancreas and seems to produce excess insulin that can result in hypoglycemia in some people.

Myth based on partial fact.

The American Diabetes Association has a page on diabetes myths which is mostly good (it still touts the "obesity is a risk factor for diabetes" myth, when it's well established that weight gain is a symptom of insulin resistance and sometimes diabetes. Stable "obesity" is not a true risk factor for diabetes.).

The thing is, for people with the disposition to glucose intolerance, whether from genetics or disease (such as PCOS), eating a lot of sugar can cause reactive hypoglycemia which, in turn, can trigger insulin resistance. Once you have insulin resistance it's a short hop to full blown diabetes.

That said, for people with no genetic or disease risk of diabetes, eating a crapload of sugar will probably just rot your teeth.


And, folks, this is why I hate things like the "save your life with my diet -- only $29.99" books, and the articles in the press that conflict each other every day. They're almost all bunk, junk science.

What saddens me most about this guy is that I suggested he learn to read medical journals so he can read the actual studies, I was told that he has read "many studies proving" that sugar causes obesity and disease and that I have no clue. And my refusal to believe in "Atkins, Mirkin, Duffy and others" shows that I'm dismissive of him and condescending. (Medical doctors are not scientists -- most don't even grasp the idea of causation =! causality. Plus these guys are/were out to make money. Otherwise they would have published real studies, not books!)

ETA: I forgot to mention where this guy told me that if I refuse to believe that sugar is bad for you I "obviously" believe that cigarettes don't cause cancer. Because, you know, people who refuse to believe in bad science refuse to believe in all science.

When we were doing the post-conference debrief for the Ohio LinuxFest someone mentioned that he'd run across two women who had left the Diversity in Open Source Workshop early. They were complaining how silly it was that we were constantly talking about how great it was that there were more women speakers at this conference than any other year, or any other Open Source conference, to anyone's knowledge.

My first thought was a flash of anger. And then I recalled that not very long ago, I was just like them.

For the past few months I've been helping do sysadmin work for the Organization for Transformative Works. I almost didn't join, because they pride themselves on having a mostly female staff, to the point that they sometimes can sound exclusionist. A bunch of their people pitched their case: That "normal" is usually about what men want and need, that women sometimes don't feel comfortable working with a majority of men, who may dismiss their work solely for their gender. Still, I felt that by saying "We're all about the women" they were somehow saying, "Go away, men."

It took a while for it to all click in my head. There are men who work on OTW, including one in the sysadmin group. A lot of the infrastructure scripts were setup by a man, one who no longer is with the org but who I know and respect. But the overall site is run by women working together. There's nobody to say, "You can't do this, you're a woman" and working with other women gives you a feeling of inclusion.(*)

Going back to OLF: I know it's not unique to OLF but I've heard in the past of women who have come only to get the "Whose girlfriend are you?" attitude -- the belief that no woman can actually understand computers, Open Source software, or anything technical -- from the mostly male audience.

When there are no women on the stage to show the audience that, yes, women can be technical, women can not only understand computers but can explain what they know to you, then the audience has nothing to help them learn that women can be geeks, too.

When there are no women on the stage to show the audience that, yes, women can be geeks, too, there's nothing for women to identify with, so that they can say, "I'm like her, I want to be like her, she inspires me to learn more about this."

The sad part of it all is that there is still a huge "this doesn't apply to me" factor from the OLF audience. I'm still heartbroken at how few people attended the talk on making software more accessible to the disabled. Some men clearly had issues with the women speakers, including the one who came up to me at the event with a laundry list of reasons why a seasoned, well-informed speaker was "incompetent and wrong" about everything she said. In the post-conference survey some men gave huge thumbs up to male speakers while disliking every female speaker. I still would like to see more people of color represented on stage. There's still a long, long way to go.

And there's the problem of folks like those women, who can't see that they came to the conference and nobody told them, "Why are you here, you're a girl?" -- something that would have happened in the past, when there were few women on stage and fewer women attending.

People can't know that there are differences unless we point them out. People want to be with people like themselves. That's why having more women matters.




(*)FWIW the whole atmosphere at OTW is completely different to anything I've ever done before. The attitude is "We take whatever help you can give." There is no major pressure. Nobody talks down to you if you don't understand something, and nobody assumes you don't know what they're talking about. If one person lets things slide either it slides or someone else finishes up for you. And because the project is (relatively) unique, and people aren't all coming from another site, I don't see the "We did it this way at the last site and you have no background to understand so we will dismiss every idea you present" problem I had at Dreamwidth. My biggest "complaint" about OTW is the all-staff meetings where everyone yells and cheers for each group. It's like a frakkin Amway meeting sometimes :-).

I was browsing ancient posts here and discovered that I started this after the 1st kidney stone happened. I dunno if I've told this tale before but I'll tell it again now.

[I've also found some cool stuff i'd long forgotten I'd written. I need to make my own self-absorbed index.]

It started relatively quietly. All I remember is the gnawing feeling in my stomach, which seemed to go away when I ate something. I thought I was working on an ulcer.

The next day I called my doctor who said to come in. By the time they put me in a room, I couldn't sit still. I kept getting up and moving around. By this time my stomach didn't hurt so much but I had sharp pains in my middle back. The doctor said these were a clear sign of a kidney stone, but she wasn't completely sure, so she sent me straight to the ER.

Now, in these days I could still walk (for some definition of walk, with the cane) so while waiting in the ER (West Penn) I was pacing back and forth, trying to sit [because all the walking *hurt*; my spine was really mad at me for doing it], and, apparently, getting paler and paler, and starting to cry from pain. They took me back pretty quickly, decided I did have a kidney stone and admitted me. But I still had no pain killers.

They wheeled me up to a room and told me that an IV person would be by shortly, then they could give me some narcotics. So I tried to lie down, which hurt. And sitting hurt. So I'd pace and pace and try to sit, and pace and pace, and I was sweating buckets, so I was dehydrating, and my muscles started cramping, and all I could do was pace and cry from the pain.

By the time the IV person came in and then they finally got morphine in me I'd been pacing and crying for over 4 hours. I was dehydrated and exhausted.

Now, I had a roommate, who had been out of the room the first couple hours that I'd been in there. By the time I finally got settled they brought her back. She was an older woman with cancer who had lost so much weight they had to stop giving her chemo.

In the middle of the night the screaming started from down the hall. "HELP! HELP! THEY'RE TRYING TO KILL ME! HELP! GET AWAY FROM ME! AAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!" It would go for a few minutes, stop, then suddenly start again. When a nurse came in I asked what was going on. "Oh, that's just gramma," she told me, "We always seem to have someone with dementia here, and they never can remember where they are."

If this wasn't stressful enough, they were now pumping gallons of water through the IV tube. Most of the time they'd forget to take it out of the fridge ahead of time, so they were pushing ICE water through. And it got so bad I was getting up to pee every 20 minutes. Yes, I was keeping track of it, because I thought at first that I was exaggerating to myself. So now I'm freezing, I can't sleep, and the minute I nod off I either have to pee or someone's trying to kill gramma again.

Morning came and doctors came to tell my roommate she was going home, but first she had to learn how to give herself injections of drugs to help increase her blood count. She was terrified, even after a nurse showed her how to do it. When the doctors came back she told them she didn't think she could do it. They tried to soothe her fears in a way only people who've never done something do.

So I butted in and told her what it's like to regularly stick a needle in your body multiple times a day. I gave her little hints, like "if just the tip of the needle hurts your skin, move to another spot." By the time I was done, the doctors were all going, "Yeah, yeah, listen to her!" and she was much more relieved. When the nurse gave her one last trial run she was much calmer about it.

At some time they wheeled me off for some contrast X-Rays and whatevers. When I came back she was gone.

I had the room to myself [still peeing every 20 minutes, with gramma still screaming off and on] until about 2 am when someone was wheeled in. I was semi-coherent -- by that point I'd had no sleep more than 15 minute naps since I was admitted. They were noisy but I was on another planet.

At some point in the night I begged the nurse to stop the water. She insisted I needed it to "flush the stone out." I countered that without sleep I was going to get far sicker than the frakkin stone. Eventually she turned up her nose at me and said that I was "allowed" to refuse treatment, and that's what she was going to report. Fine with me!

In the morning the new roommate and I got to chatting. She had had rheumatoid arthritis since a child and had been taking steroids most of her life. However now that she was older her bones were brittle. She'd just recently spent 2 weeks in the clink for having a broken vertebrae. 4 days after getting out she broke a bone in her foot, and her Dr put her straight back into the hospital.

When the doctors came in they determined that the stone had likely passed and was too small to get caught, and I could go home that afternoon. I finally got more than a few minutes of sleep, and woke up to hear my roommate on the phone, apparently with one of her kids. It seeed her last time in the hospital had been miserable, 'cause she was saying, "I'm so angry! Last time every roommate I had had to be tied to the bed and would screech and scream all night! This time I finally get a roommate who can remember who I am for 5 minutes, doesn't try to wander away and doesn't pee the bed, and they're letting her out this afternoon!"

All week I've been looking at various vans, mostly early 2000ish Toyota Siennas. I was originally looking for a same-era Honda Odyssey until I read this review on Car Talk where they mention that because of the funky engines you must change the timing belt every 60k miles or so, because if they break they'll take out the whole engine [as opposed to normal engines, where a broken timing belt almost always means "the engine just doesn't run"]. Honda changed the engine in the Odyssey in 2004, iirc.

I did my hunting online. I found an Odyssey that looked ok, but the dealer squicked me by refusing to let me take the van to Ann Arbor to get inspected (he offered to recommend local mechanics, sheeyah) and didn't have the CarFax or any repair history on it. I found another that was sold before I could get it inspected, then a Sienna was gone when I called ("We just sold it last night -- back to the people who traded it in!" [WTF])

Then I found another Sienna that looked and drove great. The dealership offered to take it into the mechanics themselves (it was just up the road) -- but the mechanics basically said "This is a piece of garbage" -- both valve gaskets blown, needed new rear shocks and it had clearly been in at least 1 accident. I'd forgotten to ask the salesguy for the Carfax, he, probably "conveniently" forgot to give it to me, and when I checked, sure enough 3 accidents, in 10 yrs! Two from the last owner, in 2004 and 2006! Wow.

Yesterday I looked at another Sienna. Slightly older than the others (1998) it had the right mileage (110k) and looked and drove well. I arranged to come back this morning to take it to the mechanic.

Unfortunately I overslept a bit, so it was 10am before I got up to Brighton [about 45 minutes] to get the van. Then I drove it all the way back to Ann Arbor and waited a couple of hours for them to be able to look at it. [My fault for running late.] While waiting I read through the HUGE pile of records on the van. The original owner was a nitpicker for getting regular oil changes, maintenance and had the tires rotated and balanced absurdly frequently. Some of the stuff is pretty funny, like when he took the thing in because "the fans aren't running right" and the dealership mechanic wrote, "Told customer Toyota fans are inherently quieter."

The mechanics pretty much liked it. They found a few nits -- they say the oil pan gasket leaks, the spark plug wires are original and should be replaced, the hoses are mushy and should be replaced and one of the front rotors is rusty, but a relatively new brake pad was put on it. They figured to fix all that would be about $1k. They asked how much the dealership was asking and said it wasn't worth the $7k they wanted. I told them I was going to go as high as $4500 + Stupid Truck.

I drove the van back and started negotiating. I started with $3500 + Stupid Truck. They did an evaluation of it's worth [6 quarters and a can of Alpo, but I didn't say that out loud]. They told me that one in better shape would get $1100 and this had obvious issues -- and it does -- it has no radio, the a/c compressor is dead and the ABS system is hosed.

So I offered $4000 + Stupid Truck. No way, he said. I pointed out that the van has been on their lot since August 1. He said that was why the price was down to $7k. I said, OK, $4500 + Stupid Truck. He said no. I said, OK, call me if you change your mind -- and walked out the door.

He was next to the truck before I started the ignition.

He tried to push me to $4800. I said, "Look, I'm on disability. I have a little money from the back pay they send you when you're accepted. I can afford $5000 for a new vehicle, which is $4500+ taxes + license/title fees."

I got it for $4500 flat + Stupid Truck. The paperwork puts the cost of the van at $49XX and the trade-in at $700.

It's a pretty nice van.

Specifically, GO TO HELL.

http://www.wtol.com/Global/story.asp?S=13335423

Man with Cerebral Palsy is refused a flight because he's told he's "too disabled" to fly alone.

Now technically that is within the regs for FAA accessibility rules. BUT this guy has already wracked up over 500,000 miles flying around talking about being disabled.

The article claims, U.S. Airways' website says people can't fly alone if they wouldn't be able to help themselves or others in an emergency.

THAT is not allowed according to the FAA, via the Air Carrier Access Act. You are only allowed to bring up the "help themselves or others in an emergency" if someone is in an exit row, which the disabled are pretty much barred from.

If this were the case I would never, ever be able to fly again. Neither would the little old lady who flew near me on my last flight, who was alone and could barely get up from her seat by herself.

Good old US Airways, the airline that stranded me at a gate at PIT, at midnight, because "We don't have anyone to help you get to baggage claim." I've since found out that this is against FAA regs and that what I should have done is asked for their Complaints Resolutions Officer. One must be available 24x7, even if it's a voice on the end of a phone.

Yay for Southwest, who not only has never given me any of this crap but has always made great pains to help me.

[We won't even discuss the evil vile NorthWorst.]

I'm a regular reader of a blog written by a neurologist who calls himself "Doctor Grumpy." He has a sharp wit, and a good sense of humour, which he needs for all the stuff he seems to get to deal with on a daily basis. Based on his blatherings he's got to be within 10 yrs of my age [my age or 10 yrs younger], which is certainly young enough to "know better."

Yesterday he made a post titled, "Oooh, tell me more":

Dr. Grumpy: "It looks like you have carpal tunnel syndrome. Do you do computer work?"

Miss Perky: "Yes. I work for a mens' club, handling their software, and sometimes their hardware, too".


I commented:

I know you're just being a goofball, Doc, but this kinda stuff is exactly why women have a hard time being taken seriously in the computing [and other technical] field.

If a guy had said that would you have made the same post?

To which he said:

That's a good point, Moose. I am being silly, but have to admit you are right.

I'm glad to see Dr Grumpy recognizing his foot was somewhat in his mouth.

However, many of the other comments are your typical "Haw, haw, let's mock her some more" with a few exceptions. And then there's the "I'm a female techie but she said this so you can safely mock her for it" response.

Because, you know, it's ok to mock women who work in the sex industry and say anything that might be vaguely suggestive. Ha! ha! Let's make vagina jokes next!

Original post, with original comments:
http://drgrumpyinthehouse.blogspot.com/2010/10/oooh-tell-me-more.html

I just read an article about two health care systems here in SE Michigan merging. One of the people interviewed (from one of the systems) commented thus:

“If you watched the Massachusetts experience, when they went to universal health care, volumes skyrocketed and waiting time grew exponentially,” he said. “That’s not an outcome that we want here in our community.”

The article continues to talk about how with the so-called ObamaCare, millions of people without insurance will suddenly be able to go visit a doctor.

When I hear someone complain about ObamaCare there's often that tinge of "You're taking away what's rightfully mine," the whining cry of the privileged, along with complaints of this being "socialism."

I'm still trying to figure out how getting poor people access to good health care is "socialism," unless "socialism" really means "How dare people survive on my dime."

Some argue that poor people get plenty of health care, they just use the emergency room for care, a myth that's been disproven repeatedly. In Mass. where people now must have health care the number of poor people in the ER has not changed.

The truth is, people without health care usually do nothing, because, hey, it costs MONEY.

As someone who has had no health care for a few years now, let me tell you the joys, in summary. I'm lucky enough that there's a free health care clinic near me. They have two open-clinic days, Wed night and Sat morning, but new patients can only come on Sat morning, and then only about 12 can be seen (+ about 12 returning patients). You have to be seen at the Sat morning clinic to get into their system so you can start seeing a regular doctor and appointments are typically backed up about 3 months.

Everyone at the clinic is a volunteer. The doctors at the open clinics are haphazard, you never know what you will get. One time I saw a kidney specialist, another time a VA Emergency dept doctor, another a 70+ yr old retired doctor (possibly the best I ever saw there), and others. One will tell you this drug is better than the other. The next time you'll be told you shouldn't be on X you should have been prescribed Y. They try to prescribe drugs you can get cheaply at various stores, and they have people who help you get into programs by the pharm companies to send you drugs for free. [I get my insulin for free this way; I'd be out of pocket around $700/month, at least, otherwise.]

Without rehashing the tale, let me remind you of the difference of having pneumonia with and without insurance. Without meant no X-Rays, no hospital stay, no people checking on me every few hours to make sure I'm still breathing. Instead I got, "Watch your fever and come back in a week to make sure you're getting better."

Those who bash ObamaCare etc. are pissed off because they're sure that their lives will be impacted. Yes, it probably will be. You may experience longer waits. There's a shortage these days of general practice doctors, and the cause of that is not ObamaCare, MediCare or any other gov't function: It's the cost of malpractice insurance and the tort laws that allow people to frivolously sue over hangnails.

I'm lucky: pneumonia is dangerous and kills.

The point is that without good health care poor people can and do die, likely younger than those with regular health care.

So, remember in the early days of ObamaCare there was this myth that it called for "Death Panels" -- a system where the mysterious "they" would determine if gramma was too old and sick to live and refuse her further medical care? Remember the outrage over this?

Apparently letting gramma suffer is bad, but letting poor people suffer with poor health is fine.

Someone explain this to me.

One of the complaints I hear a lot about people who are in manual wheelchairs, hell, even in electric mobility devices, is that they are often invisible to the masses if there are able bodied people around. I first started hearing/reading about it when people who were in manual wheelchairs that were being pushed by someone else were complaining that people would have conversations with the person pushing the chair, ignoring the person in the chair. If someone was in an electronic mobility device around others they would often be left out of conversations if others were around.

It's not just a problem with the physically disabled. I've heard of people going up to a mentally disabled person and an able person and talking only to the able person, and talking down to the disabled person. I've heard of people talking to an ASL translator as if it's their words in the conversation, and people helping blind people to navigate places as if blindness means you can't speak or hear. I've seen these happen, and I try hard to not do these things myself.

As those of you know me already know, I often make light of bad situations. It's the old adage: gotta keep laughing, otherwise the crying starts. I really hate how disabled my body has become but I'm slowly getting more and more accepting of it.

After years of refusing to, yet obviously unable to walk around a store on my own, I started using the store-provided mobility scooters that bigger grocery store chains offer. Living out here pretty much by myself I no longer had the luxury of bugging people for help going food shopping. I had to learn to do by myself, including lugging bags into the apartment.

But if I have to zip around in those bulky, hard to control things I'm going to have a bit of fun. The usual thing I do is when I see another person in a motorized device -- whether it's a store-owned one or their own, I'll lean over to them and say, in a loud stage whisper, "PSSST!! WANNA RACE?" This has yet to fail to get me at least a smile, if not outright laughter. Some of these people have obviously had a disability for a while and are in their own chair or scooter. Some are clearly temporarily disabled [casts are a big clue :-)] and well, whatever the other people's needs are are their business. But all seem to appreciate a little laughter over their situation.

Today I was going down an aisle in a Meijer [for those who don't know, it's a mid-western chain which is pretty much what a Super Walmart wants to be, only nicer and cleaner]. Coming up towards me was an older woman pushing an older man in a manual wheelchair. They could have been roughly the same age but it was clear the man had been ill; he looked rather frail. But I couldn't resist.

As I approached I looked up at the woman and winked, then leaned over to the man and loudly whispered, "PSST! WANNA RACE?" The woman burst out laughing. The guy started for a second, then laughed himself, eventually managing to tell me, "I'm not the one driving!"

I ran into them again about 20 minutes later in another part of the store. She took one look at me and started giggling. I smiled back.

I never realized until recently how insensitive and condescending this statement is.

It always comes on the tag of "I hate people who..." type statements. When you point out to someone that they have offended you, they grant you the special magic wand exception from their hate.

In the late '80s I worked with a guy who had very strong and loud opinions. We would have very interesting and detailed private conversations - they had to be private, and we would warn people who came near us, as we were risking someone overhearing us and filing harassment charges for some of our topics.

For a while our group had a rotating pile of administrative assistants. I'm not sure if our insanities drove them all away or they found better offers, but we rarely kept one longer than 6 months for about 2 yrs. One of these was a man who was very openly gay, in the stereotypical flamboyant way. He was extremely friendly and excellent at his job.

One day he came upon Mr Opinionated and me having one of our outside, in the corner conversations and asked if we minded his company. We told him he was welcome but pointed out that the conversation topic was rather sexually explicit and that it might be offended, and that's why we were away from others. He replied that, "Nothing you can say will shock me, don't worry." So I turned back to Mr Opinionated and asked a further question about how his health issues were causing erectile problems. Mr Admin Assistant went pale, muttered something like, "Sorry, gotta go," and scurried off.

After Mr O and I were done giggling, Mr O said to me, "You know, I hate fags, but that guy is OK."

Mr Opinionated had 20 yrs on me and I've always been one to give a little wiggle room for people older than me, who may have come from a longer time with biased beliefs. At the time I thought something like, "Let him like one "exception", maybe he can realize that if one is ok, they can all be ok."

Now, let me be clear here: There really is no group of people who are all good and all bad. The Late Great Robert B Parker's "Spenser", when wanting to point this out, that "Hitler liked dogs". (To Spenser, through Parker, there is something wrong with people who don't like dogs.)

But that's the point. We're people. We're more than our gender, our sexuality, our religion, our marital status, our studies, our politics, our race, our heritage, etc. These are just things that make up who we are. In the end, we are people. When we start lumping people together to love or hate them we lose the basic part: That we're people.

When you take that lump of people and then start making exceptions here and there, you're stating that only the exceptions have the right to really be people, and that you are waving your special magic wand to grant them this exception. It's a condescending, "There, there, it's ok, I don't think YOU are bad, too!"

The next time you realize that you think "I don't like people who are X, but Joe Blow is OK", remember that Joe Blow is still in that X group. Instead of hating groups of people lumped as gays, conservatives, Muslims, women who get divorced, or even people who don't like dogs, take issue with the concepts behind them.

There is a world of difference between, "I am uncomfortable with the idea of homosexuality" and "I don't like gays." You can disagree or dislike parts of a religion without lumping all the people who believe in it as bad.

Please think about it.

Part 1. Part 2.

The latest LOPSA news letter just came out. There is a three paragraph blurb at the top talking about what a neat-o person the new Leadership Committee chair is [and, really, he is, I do like the guy] and all about what the Leadership Committee does.

When I took over there was... nothing.

Here's the archive of newsletters. I took over in 12/2006. Hell, maybe I'm misremembering and misreading. But I don't recall anything nor can I find anything.

You can, however, find a nice thank you in the 2/2008 newsletter thanking the original LC Chair when he stepped down from the committee.

Remember when I mentioned I was named Volunteer of the Year for 2007? It was announced at LISA. I can't find that in a newsletter, either.

Also, yes, the newsletter archive is horribly out of date. That's something that's been pointed out to the board numerous times. Because, you know, communicating with the organization is part of their job.

Link to Part 1.



Hi. My name is Moose. I am member #2 of the League of Professional System Administrators (LOPSA). Low membership numbers are reserved for the board to assign. I, and three others, were given membership numbers 1-4 by being part of the "Leadership Committee", the people who helped form the original board for the organization. [LOPSA history, if you're curious.] When the chair of the LC left in early 2008 the board told us we could find our own replacement and choose our own chair. [LOPSA's bylaws on committees.] We chose a new member and I became the chair of the Leadership Committee.

As mentioned in the previous post, I am active with the Education Committee [EduComm] and have been since it's inception.

I am also a member of the technical team. These are, amusingly, the sysadmins to the sysadmins. Briefly, we run the stuff behind lopsa.org. Mostly I deal with the mailing lists, but if something else crops up I will try to help, if I can.

All of this may be why in 2007 LOPSA awarded me with a "Volunteer of the Year" award. This was the first time the award was given.

( Women in LOPSA have their roles. Talking about sexism is not one of them. )

Link to Part 2.5

Sometimes I have a bit of a temper. For the most part I've learned that when I want to yank out the chainsaw I should sit down and count to 10 and think it through. Email sent in anger, and all that jazz. Sleep on it, sometimes things look better in the morning.

Sometimes a pile of crap at night is still a pile of crap in the morning. Or a week later.

( Sexism is alive and well within LOPSA, Part 1 )

Link to part 2

Person A: {Makes sexist/racist/otherwise bigotted comment}

Persons B-through-N: HAHAHAA YOU ARE SO RIGHT

Me: Please do not say things like that, it is rude. It is not nice to demean other people for your own amusement.

Persons A-Z: {Attack me, call me names, report me to forum managers for being a jerk & try to get me removed}

Note that these same people would go ballistic if the original comment was about, say, their religion. Or anything else that mattered to *them*.

People need to realize that there aren't "ok" areas for targets. You can't say, "Well it's ok to mock Jews/Muslims/Buddhists/Athiests/etc., just don't pick on Christians or I'll beat you up." You can't say, "Those gays are ok as long as I don't have to know they're gay." ^*

You can't think it's ok to use words like "fatty" or "retard" in name-calling [you can have *fatty* meat and *retard* an engine] but then claim that it's not the same as using words like "nigger" and "spic" (two words that have no other use in the English language). Words meant to hurt still hurt, no matter how much you like using them.

Recently on a forum I read someone posted that "morbidly obese" people do not have the right to make any judgments about other people. I love the implied part of this: that only the skinny have the right to judge others. The obvious missing point here is that NOBODY has the right to judge others.

Someone followed this up with the amazing concept that the reason Gay Pride parades exist is solely to for gay people to piss straight people off. That's kinda like saying that the only reason St Patrick's Day parades exist is to piss off people in Alcoholics Anonymous.

Of course I spoke up, and now people are berating me. I "just don't have a sense of humor." I "take things too seriously." And all that other derailing shit people use when they're bigots and refuse to either face it or admit they've said something bad.


This goes the other way, too. You can't quietly laugh at all the hateful stuff until your button is pushed, then blow a gasket. I've mentioned this before, but back when the second Austin Powers movie was released some fat people went bonkers over the "Fat Bastard" character, which used every bad stereotype of fat people out there. They screamed for boycotting and banning the movie. Typical posts ran to, "It was funny until they..." I pointed out that if they were laughing at the rest of the movie -- which is all based on stereotypes -- they have no right to say that the other stereotypes are ok to laugh at, but the one that mocks them is not. Either they're all bad or they're all good. You don't get to cherry-pick.

^*Public admission: I used to say something like this, that I didn't like to see gay couples kissing in public. Later I realized that I don't like to see anyone kissing in public. If your lips are touching (no matter what gender any of you are) for more than about 3 seconds you are squicking me. I also realize this is my problem. However if you start grabbing body parts I reserve the right to tell you to get a room.


[Added: The guy who made the comment about gay pride parades did it on a site that does reviews of businesses. He has a review of a gym where he goes into explicit detail about other men's genitals. I leave you with that.]

One of my posts has been accepted into the latest Disability Blog Carnival. Officially the theme is "Pride" but what really comes out in these posts is a common thread of speaking up for ourselves.

I encourage you to read the posts in there. There are a lot, but they are awesome words.

But Don't You Realize Fat Is Unhealthy?

AKA the biggest excuse out there for treating fat people like crap. YOU ARE OBVIOUSLY UNHEALTHY THERE FOR YOU SUCK AND I GET TO MOCK YOU AND COMPLAIN ABOUT WHAT YOU EAT AND HOW YOU LIVE. HOW DARE YOU BE FAT!

It's kinda like going up to someone with cancer and presuming to know how they got the disease. It's like going up to a person in a wheelchair and assuming they've got a mental handicap. It's like any other *ist assumption that comes with stereotypes. And even if a fat person DOES eat crap and DOESN'T exercise, it's NONE OF YOUR DAMNED BUSINESS. You don't quiz thin people about what they eat or whether they exercise, do you?

Dude, fuck off.

After being told "We never got email from you" I forwarded my original email [sent before I lost my temper in the comments] to the moderator directly.

She tells me:

In any case, it's fairly moot. As I've explained, making any comment about the attractiveness of women isn't sexism. It would be the same thing if a man was the subject of the article, and women were commenting on his hot-or-notness. I don't see anything rule-breaking about it. If someone was posting this kind of thing in every thread, or focusing it on other users from the site, I could maybe see your point, but I just think it's too mild to consider sexist. I especially think it's fair for people to comment on this considering the topic of the article, and the claims of the woman towards her employer.

I understand you don't agree with us on this point, but in my opinion, you seem to have a bit of a thin skin in this area. I want to be fair to everyone and it seems like you're reaching too far in what you find offensive.


There you go, folks. Sexism is ok whether it's man on woman or woman on man. Talking about someone's looks isn't inappropriate if you put the word "sexy" in the subject. And I have a thin skin to sexism.

I've long been a reader of consumerist.com, which can be a very useful site. Among the things I've learned include that you don't have to show your receipt to door checkers [except in club stores like Costco where there's a membership agreement], 1001 "executive contact" email addresses for a variety of companies, and a pile of financial advice that's great if you're employed and aren't living on threads and used gum.


( tl;dr: Consumerist tells me I don't know what sexism is, bans me. )

So just to be clear here, Official Consumerist.com policy is "guys jostling each other to whistle over an attractive woman isn't sexism."

Just a side note: Consumerist.com is now owned by the Consumers Union, the people who publish Consumer's Report and test drive 10001 consumer products. They are run by a board of directors elected by members.

ETA: Further communication from Consumerist, clarifying their position.

I've been up since 3am [my sleep schedule is all kaflooey again] and so far I've heard good news, I've heard bad news, and I've heard awful news. I've been reminded of good people in bad situations and even worse things happening to others. I've been reminded of the past and sometimes it's even been a good thing.

I was catching up on "blogs" [I still hate that word] and something on one reminded me of a former co-worker, very sick and dying, the type of person who just doesn't deserve it. It in turn reminded me of another coworker who died a year before I left CMU, another person with a heart the size of Montana [only with less crazy militia types], who I still think of things I want to talk with him about far, far too often.

This morning I got a response to a comment I'd left on one of those "blogs." Somehow I came across, and started to regularly read, Storyteller ER Doc. I gotta warn you up front, this guy is an amazing writer and some of his posts are the "whoa my eyes appear to be leaking" kind.

He wrote a post about the people, usually homeless, who sometimes come to the ER looking simply for some food, or a bed for a nap, or a blanket, or maybe even someone to talk to for a bit. He said, about one person's request:

-----------------------
"Well, I see those cigarettes and iPhone poking from your pocket, so we're not going to be able to help you with that tonight. Sorry, but I can only go so far."
-----------------------

I responded:

-----------------------
I cannot disagree with your point about cigarettes, but please think twice about an iPhone [or a computer].

Years ago I used to read the 'blog' of a young woman who was homeless after she had a traumatic brain injury. Long story short(er), she had no family and was stuck in the middle of waiting for social services to figure out what to do with her. People used to tell her, "how can you claim you can't afford {whatever} when you have a computer? Sell it!" And she'd say, "This is my link to the world. This is my lifeline."

A year ago I became unemployed and disabled. I didn't become homeless but I came close. The one thing I never let go of was my laptop. It did, in fact, become my lifeline. With no TV, no radio, and a cheap pay-as-you-go cellphone, the laptop was my only way to communicate with people. Like the young woman whose blog I read I'd go to coffeehouses and spend $2 on a cup of coffee so I could sit and use their wireless connection.

So maybe the iPhone is a gift from someone who knows they need to stay in touch. Maybe it isn't. In that case you mentioned, sure, if you can afford cigarettes you can spend the money on something else. But the computer might be a gift to someone as a lifeline.

I guess it's like trying to figure out who is really a seeker and who is really in pain.
-----------------------

The response I got this morning almost made me cry:
-----------------------
Moose

It is comments like yours that keep me on my toes. I thank you for your input. I would have never gained this perspective if not for you...

I appreciate your words and input immensely.

I hope your weekend is a great one. And I hope this finds you in a better place than a year ago.

Sincerely,
Jim
-----------------------

I learned a lot from that woman, enough that it made me terrified of how I would survive if I actually became homeless. I will eternally thank all my friends who helped keep it from happening. But I'm also thankful to that young woman for having enough wisdom to not only get through the rocks in my head but to rattle around enough that I'm able to pass it along further.

Another lesson lived, another learned and shared.

[cripes, I hate when I get all philosophical, I feel like a fortune cookie.]

- Up at 6:15. Yes, AM. And that after not falling asleep until after 2 am.
- Bathe, dress, turn cartwheels, etc.
- Head out to pick up jsbillings and obleighvious (30 minutes away). It was about 66 degrees out and wonderful to drive in. [Stupid Truck's AC does not function.]
- Head up to Brighton (another 30 minutes)
- Have humongous breakfast at a restaurant called "Cheryl's Place". We got there around 9 am, just before they reached the point of taking names for tables. There were a lot of Harley riders there. We found out later that this wasn't just because it was a gorgeous day for riding but because the local Harley shop was having some festivities.
- Head to Costco, which opened about 20 minutes before we got there and people were already streaming OUT! Needed to replace my id card, which is buried somewhere in the kitchen. The picture is even more psychotic looking than the last one.
Then tooled around buying one of many things, although I talked myself out of buying things I do need [a printer, a UPS or two, a microwave, etc.]. I think the most amusing thing I got was the gigantic box of waffles. The most amusing thing they got was the "Menage a Trois" wine. Also got a huge 2 lb block of habanero cheddar. And the site of "chihuahua cheese" made me think of WKRP and giggle¹
- Drive through MickeyD's for (re)hydrating liquids
- Back to Ypsitucky to drop off my share of the booty. Finally figured out why birds chirp half the night, driving me bonkers: there's a nest on the building light near my door [one of the ones on walls, with the motion-detector sensor; not the outside door kind]. Well, maybe they'll eat the hornets trying to build nests above the deck outside my door. (another 30 minute trip)
- Back to the J's's house to drop off their stuff (again, 30 minutes away). It was then 20 degrees warmer than when I started.
- Back to the edges of the A2/Ypsi border for hair removal. I think she said this was the #4 top for the hair buzzinator [we started with the #6 which was too long], and I'm thinking next time to go even shorter. [The pictures suck, sorry.]
- Stopped at a nearby deli I've been wanting to try for ages because, among other things, they have REAL "NEW" PICKLES. They offered me a sample piece, and it was delicious. I bought two jars and when I got them home they turned out to be over-fermented, fizzing and with that nasty metallic taste fermented pickled things get when they over-ferment [kimchee does this too]. BAH.
- Drive Thru Dunkies for coffee coffee coffee coffee for more hydration

Then home. Now am still overcoffeed but completely exhausted. Today I spent at least a week's worth of energy. When I finally fall asleep I will probably be zonked out for at least a day.


¹ Meaning this:
Johnny: Les, you're the guy who once talked about the golf player Ch-eye ch-eye Rod-dwig-gweez. And what do you call those little Mexican dogs?
Les: You mean Cheh hoo-ah hoo-ahs?

The Feds have officially declared me a Cripple.

To everyone who has been helping and supporting me these past too-many months, whether financially, emotionally, spiritually, insanely, whatever, I offer a gallon or twelve of THANK YOU.

I have the best friends on the planet.

The medical clinic I go to is nominally run by "a non-denominational Christian" organization. In reality they have close ties with the Catholic church, and get a lot of stuff via St Joseph's Mercy Hospital, which is "sponsored by Catholic health ministries."

[That reminds me, next time I'm there I should remind the receptionist that she should not call the hospital "St Joe's" to people who are not native English speakers. English is hard enough to learn and understand without people using contractions, nicknames or colloquialisms.]

( Sex, Drugs, and Religion )

One of my many eccentricities [ok, neuroses] is that I cannot swallow pills without food. This is far better than the many days when I couldn't swallow them at all, of course, but now, except in extreme circumstances [and then only with smaller pills] I cannot swallow a pill unless I'm about to swallow food at the same time.

I keep at the bottom of my bed a box of pills, mostly back-stock for things I go through a lot of: Ibuprofen, multivitamins, iron supplements. Usually the ibuprofen is the only thing that gets taken more than once a day, often multiple times through the night. Next to the box is a giant bag kept filled with gummi candies which I use to swallow 'em. [Regular, daily pills are taken with a daily meal.] They also make great emergency sugar for when I wake up at 3 am with absurdly low blood sugar.

For the past half year or so that bag has been full of the Lifesavers-brand gummy candies. Last summer Amazon had a sale in which you could save up to 40% on your whole order [on top of any other discounts you could find] on a wide selection of stuff they dubbed "back to school". I had a gift certificate and wound up getting about $120 worth of grocery store items for about $55-60 of the gift cert. One of those things was a case of the Lifesavers gummy candies. Bought in a store, a 7 oz bag of these is about $2, which is nuts. Depending on whether or how often my blood sugar goes low one of those 7 oz bags can last 1 to 3 weeks.

Recently Amazon had another gummies sale, this time on the Haribo brand. They make little gummi bears that are often found in stores in little grab-me bags. AMZ wanted $11 for 5 lbs of the things.

But wait! You didn't have to order bears! (Which is great, because I cannot look at gummi bears without thinking of bondage bears, which I cannot make anymore because of my arthritic hands. [and if you don't know what I'm talking about it's probably better it stay that way.]) Haribo makes about a dozen forms of gummi this and gummi that.

So now at the end of my bed is a giant bag of... gummi alphabet letters. Mostly amusing, right?

I woke up at 2 am this morning with a blood sugar of 60. [this is pretty low, folks.] Now, when your blood sugar gets that low when you are sleeping your body does it's damndest to wake you up. So when you wake up discombobulated, confused, trying to piece together reality vs. the horrific nightmare you just had, freezing cold, sweaty, and sometimes more wet [sorry], sometimes unable to see clearly and/or with big dark splotches in your vision, it can take a few moments to realize just what is wrong and that you really need to do something about it.

Here's where the gummi purchase went wrong. I started the glucometer test and then grabbed a big handful of letters. and started trying to make words.

Fortunately I had three Js, a Q and two Ws, or maybe they were Ms. My only vowel was an A. I made JAW, or was it JAM, before it finally occurred to me to read the damned meter and then start shoving the letters in my mouth.

I can see it now. Dead from low blood sugar. The EMTs saying, "What a tragic waste, but look! She spelled KWYJIBO!"

The short version:
- Cook some rice the day before you're going to make fried rice. It really does work better; warm, the rice tends to break down and turn to mush.
- Take vegables, chop into small pieces. [Technically they should be uniform small pieces but we're not all rapier1 :-P.]
- Optionally, do the same with meat. Marinate first if you like.
- Optionally, scramble an egg or make a very thin omelet & cut it into strips.
- Cook the above seperately or in small groups.
- If you want sauce/flavoring, add it to the meat ond/or vegables
- FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS TASTY DO NOT put more than a few dashes of soy sauce, IF ANY, on the rice or the finished product.
- Once your vegs or meat & vegs are cooked, stir fry the rice, add the rest, toss, PIG OUT.

( Long detailed version of what I did, with footnote natterings )

People who are going to get smacked by me include:

( anger flows from here )

Dave, the guy who writes Rolling Around in My Head, has come up with another gem I must reproduce.

In a post saying that he does not apologize for who he is, what he says, what his life is or why he says anything he posts, he pointed out

There are eight days in the disabled week ... the eighth day is made up 
from the extra three hours and forty two minutes it takes every day to 
dress, undress, shower, toilet, shave, put socks on, transfer in and out 
of chairs. We are meek us disabled folk, we put our extra day into the 
existing week, don't want to inconvenience you all.

Now, I don't have a chair I need to transfer in & out of just now, and I rarely put on socks [Mr Spine doesn't LIKE it when we visit Mr Feets], but this otherwise says a lot.

& to paraphrase some of other things he said, and add feelings in my own bitter words:

A lot of people seem or appear to get tired of me ranting about the crap in my life. Yes, yes, Moose, we've heard it all before. Your claims that being fat isn't always so bad or an automatic death sentence or the cause of the 10935 diseases the media says it is. How hard it is being a crippled person in a non-handicapped world. How bio-gender females get treated like crap by others - sometimes women, too! - who often don't even realize what they're doing or saying. ¹

Maybe you're one of those people who believes that you can never be fat & healthy and that by not taking drastic measures to lose weight I am committing some kind of suicide. Maybe you think that I should STFU about my health and disabilities because there are people so much "worse" and/or that I wouldn't have some or all of my health issues because of my weight. Maybe you think that women over-react to the way things are in the world and perceive bigotry where none exists. Maybe you think I'm poor & struggling because I'm a lazy fat jerk.

Meanwhile, I will state this - If you're tired of my ranting, if you think I'm just whining: You're welcome to your opinion. If you don't like what I say, there's the door, over on that "stop following" link.

I'm not enough of an attention whore to want a thousand people reading my babbling just because I write what others want to hear. I'd rather have 10 friends who give a shit about what goes on in my craptastic life.


¹I'll save the issues about people who are uncomfortable calling me "Moose" for another post entirely, when I can ramp myself up to it.

One of my interests lately, for some weird reason, is about Logical Fallacies. I keep forgetting the way some of them work. There's a great page here that both well describes what different fallacies are and gives good examples of them.

Today's fallacy, boys and girls, is called The Red Herring.

If any of you read mystery novels you may know the term "red herring." It is basically a clue thrown in to try to disguise the real trail of clues. Allegedly the term comes from training dogs to hunt, but there's no clear proof this is so.

A "red herring" fallacy occurs when someone tries to derail the conversation to their own desires. It pretty much goes:

Person1: I say A.
Person2: But what about B? We must address B! (in a way that implies that B is related to A)
And then the conversation is turned away from A.

Politicians are forever using this.

"We need a new bridge on Smith Road."
"But to pay for that we'll have to raise taxes! Taxes are already too high! How can we lower taxes?"
"Well one way to lower taxes is to..."

DERAILED.

One of the web journals (you know I hate the "b" word) I read regularly is one by a guy who is relatively recently disabled. He also works with the disabled professionally. His posts are generally thoughtful and well spoken and he doesn't babble on endlessly LIKE SOME ALCES ALCES I KNOW *cough* sorry.

In a very recent post Dave blew a gasket at people using their fame to "speak up" for the disabled, as if disabled people are all a bunch of mushrooms who cannot speak up for themselves.

But oh! One of the people he lit into was Sarah Palin. Politics!

Sure enough, some tw*t (fill that in as you see fit) decided that this was really an attack on Palin! You hate her politics! Then she goes on and on about how obviously she should never be allowed to speak up for disabled people, ever! It's all about HER!

After leaving one comment I read some of her further antics ("You only hate Sarah Palin! Look the actress with DS who made fun of Palin says it's ok to pick on Palin so that's ok, right?") I realized that people were debating her about politics. Was Obama's comment about the special olympics worse than Palin's declaring herself the spokesman for the disabled? Blah blah blah.

I lost it myself. My last comment was:
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Get over yourself, Laura. This isn't about making fun of people, and this isn't about Sarah Palin's politics. This is about people who think they have some god-given right to speak up on behalf of disabled people based on some half-assed idea that disabled people need an able body to speak up for them.

Seeing this issue as anything else is just pimping your own agenda.
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Because what she was doing was the classic example of a "red herring" fallacy.

I'm sure she'll come back and attack me, and I'm sure it will be all about the politics. Tigers. Sripes. Lack of change. Film at 11.

ETA: Yep, she's still ranting and railing about how every commenter but her "hates" Palin. Worse, others keep Feeding the Troll. Well, it's not my site.

I wrote up a summary of Kevin Smith's 'smodcast' about being treated like crap by Southwest Airlines for being perceived as "too fat" to fit in a single seat.

Smith updated the world, yesterday, via Twitter, that he'd been in further communication with SWA. He said they finally got through to him by phone and tried to apologize and explain what "really" happened on the flight which he was removed from. Apparently there was another person on the flight who had a 2nd seat but due to a screwup they had one person too many on the plane, so someone had to go. In what was likely a case of "last one on, first to go," he was allocated for removal.

If that was true, then why not just say that? Why give him grief for being "too fat" for his single, middle seat?

Apparently SWA wanted him to say he would not sue the airline and apparently all he wanted was them to state that he was not "too fat" to fly in one seat.

Then later the same person called him up and said, "Did you see our blog post?" which is this: My Conversation With Kevin Smith".

The summary of their post was: Someone needed to get off the plane, someone made a "judgement call" about whether Smith really fit in one seat, so he was chosen, and that "communications among our employees is not as sharp as it could be." It then went on to harp about how fat people must buy two seats.

Smith read the SWA post while on the phone with her and apparently blew a gasket, because it doesn't say the magic words Smith wants to hear, "Kevin Smith is Not 'Too Fat to Fly In One Seat'".

Here's his post: Running Out of Gas On This Subject.

Now, in his defense, I can see his frustration. By their rules if you can sit in the seat and buckle your belt and put down both arm-rests without struggling, you're fine. He asked his two seatmates if he was bothering him, they said no. SWA says that "other people on the plane" complained he was too big to fit, which is disturbing in so many ways - If I'm so big I'm sitting in my seatmates space it affects HER, it doesn't bother YOU, two rows away. STFU.

But on the other hand, he's got the Woe is Me factor going here. Woe is Me! People are calling me fatty, although I know I'm fat! People are telling me if I dieted or if I wasn't fat this wouldn't have happened! Woe is Me!

When he made the Smodcast -- remember that? He said he "lost it" when he heard the young woman in the other seat talk about how badly she'd been treated, and how this was "no longer about me" but about how SWA treats all people who aren't skinny. It was about how SWA staff enforced their rules arbitrarily and without respect for what's actually written, and often done in a rude and humiliating way.

Yet now it's back to all about poor, suffering Kevin Smith, who can't get SWA to admit that *he* can fit in one seat. What happened to the young woman, Smith? What happened to fixing SWA, Smith? Are you gonna give this up because they're calling you a fatty, too?

When this started people said he was just another media whore looking for attention, but when he said in his Smodcast that he was about fixing it for everyone, I thought differently. Now I'm not so sure, especially since he's now saying that he no longer wants to talk about the SWA incident.

Maybe you're temporarily burned out on this, Mister Smith. I hope so, and that you don't drop this like a hot potato just because you're personally offended. Nothing gets changed easily, Mister Smith. Try to remember that young woman, because you looked at her and saw your little girl. A few years down the road this could happen to her. You have the power to help push things towards change, don't stop now because they're winning a war of babble and doublespeak.

For those who haven't heard: Filmmaker Kevin Smith was recently thrown off a Southwest Airline flight for being "too fat" (despite him meeting the requirements for NOT requiring a 2nd seat, by SWAs own rules).

Long story short, there's a post on Consumerist.com (filled with the usual "Lose weight, fatty" morons; fortunately the comment moderator is dealing with them as fast as she can), and SWA put up a post on their own website's "blog" which Smith called "insulting, redacted bullshit."

I just listened to Kevin Smith's podcast (or Smodcast as he calls it). Figuring that some folks might not want to sit through his creative *cough* :-) language and such (he curses more than I do, if that's actually possible, and loves to talk about his sex life. In detail.), I took copious notes & thought I would share. (Mostly this is done for the people of the fat-acceptance mailing list, but others might find it interesting, too.) To listen to it yourself, go to www.smodcast.com.

( *THIS IS KINDA LONG* )

While I've got my feminazi hat on, let me go off on another thing that's pissing me off mightily.

"Vote for Barbie to be a computer scientist!" If I see this one more time my head will shoot off my neck and smack the poster in the face.

Barbie is a fashion model style doll. She is not cuddly; if you try to hug her it feels like hugging plastic cutlery. She has big giant boobs and a teeny tiny waist and long, thin legs. Her feet are designed to fit into high heels. Barbie comes with her makeup pre-painted on, because a woman would never go anywhere without makeup!

BARBIE IS BULLSHIT. That Barbie displays an unreal expectation of what a female should look like has been hashed back and forth for years.

But let's take this one step further. One of the biggest problems technical women have is dealing with the "OOH a GIRRRLLL" factor. If you're under 40, your looks are judged before your ability or knowledge. If you're over 40, there's something wrong with you anyway, no matter how you look. And even for non-technical women, it's assumed you can't possibly understand all these big tough computer things, or do even basic math, or understand how a car works, like sports, etc.

So let's say you DO vote for Barbie the Computer Scientist. Do you *REALLY* think you're improving Barbie?

NO. Because what you've said is that female computer scientists should all look like fashion models with big boobs and makeup. Tee hee! I'm Computer Scientist Barbie! I can win Miss Statesota Pageant AND code in C and Perl! Wow! I need a new algorithm to pick what outfits I should wear next week! Ooh, my new web page can tell me when my favorite shoes are on sale! Tee hee!

SCREW BARBIE.

I want to see Real Life Barbie, not just in her career but how she looks. I want to see Fat Kid Role Model Barbie. I want to see Disability Barbie that doesn't look like a fashion model. I want to more non-white Barbies that aren't attempts at African-American (because all black kids have long wavy hair), because all of the non-white non-black Barbies I've ever seen are "special editions" that cost at least twice as much as "regular" Barbie and look like a change in makeup or skin dye.

And please dont' refer me to the pages of people who have hacked up Barbie dolls to do this, or photoshopped images, or otherwise made their own "version" of Barbie. That's not the point at all.

A company using the name "dealsplus" has been having a "retweet to win" things like a macbook or an iphone and such. So far, so good, right? It means spamming your twitter friends, but, hey, just don't do it often & they'll probably forgive you.

Well, hell. This morning I take a look and see:

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Guys!! Home Depot has great tool combo kit deals! http://
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I immediately msg back that women can be into tools, and, of course losing my temper, include "YOU'RE A TOOL!"

Then I look a bit further back and see:

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Something nasty.. sorry girls~ Solar Powered Cockroach (Black) for $2.93
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Seriously? W.T.F.???

I went to their website and filled out a form saying that they should stick to telling people about deals and leave the sexist nonsense behind.

Scrolling way back through their messages -- I went back to Dec 29 -- there's no indication that this has happened before. I'm guessing someone new is on their twitter feed and wasn't told "keep your personal bullshit to yourself."

Sheesh.

Let's see if/when I hear back from the company.

Since I'm more-or-less housebound thanks to the weather I have been cooking a lot. One thing I've been making is Flexible Not-Just-For-Breakfast Stovetop Stuff. It's not fantastic. It's not gourmet. It's not even good for you. Which means, of course, that it's damned yummy.


Required:
Potatoes O'Brien. Make your own or (if you're me) get the frozen bags from $stupidmarket when they're on sale. (If you don't know, it's cubed potatoes w/ capsicum peppers and onions. The bags I get from Krogers use both red & green peppers. Yum!)
Cheese: Shredded. You can use food product slices, or anything in small, quickly melt-able pieces. Sharp cheddar + spicy jack cheeses go well with this, but, hey, use anything you want.
BigAss Frying Pan

Optional - One or more of:
Eggs, beaten into a froth, or Egg-like Substitute, shaken into a froth.
Sausage meat (I use bulk spicy italian. Use whatever kind you like.)
Ground Pepper
Bacon Salt
Sriracha Sauce
>grab container< "Hey, i wonder how this would taste in that?"

If using sausage, put in medium-to-medium-hot heated pan, break into little pieces, cook mostly done.

If not using meat, put a little oil in a pan and heat it in a medium-to-medium-hot heated pan. [Look, you know your stove better than me. Mine can cause sunburn on a 9 setting.]

Add a layer of the Potatoes. If you're using the frozen, use a little too much (it'll shrink a bit). Cover. Let sit for about 4-5 minutes, far less if you've made your own potatoes. The bottom stuff should be mildly brown but not burnt.

Uncover, stir and turn, try to get everything moved about. If you're using frozen potatoes they won't be fully thawed & browned up yet.

If you're adding eggs, this is where to do it. I shouldn't have to tell you that you should not add salt to the start of cooking scrambled eggs, it makes 'em tough. Or if you're me, tougher. Move the eggs around so they all get heat under 'em.

When the eggs are no longer completely liquid, or if you're skipping the eggs, season stuff. Add your bacon salt, your ground pepper, your sriracha sauce, whatever. Then add your cheese on top. Make a nice layer. Yum yum yum. Cover again. Turn down the heat. Leave for 1-2 minutes, enough time so your eggs don't become leather and but your cheese melts.

Turn into bowls. Or you can heat tortillas and have whacky breakfasty tortilla thingies.

One BigAss Frying Pan makes enough for at least 4-5 people, or 2-3 days of feeding a Moose, if that's all it eats in a day. Each serving (even if you just use the potatoes and low-fat cheese) has about 5 Zillion Calories and will probably choke your arteries from just the smell.

The flexibility here is enormous. You could put in some vegables at the cheese state. You could try various other meats. Ground chicken or turkey, maybe?

In unrelated news I just made some stock that became so concentrated it may be one step above a bullion cube.

coffeehouse is closing in a couple of minutes, but two whacky discoveries:

Yesterday I found that you can heat up small corn tortillas in a pop-up toaster. seriously.

Today I found out that I can mail-order insulin syringes. Huh. No prescription needed. Huh!

Last night going home from Hippie Coffeehouse the truck tried to overheat. Given how much work was done on the cooling system last winter we are not amused.

Someone kindly sent me a usb wireless unit, but Vista refuses to see the driver for it which, admittedly, isn't official. Officially Vista will only recognize hardware rev C. You can download off the manufacturer's website a driver for rev B. This, of course, is rev A.

The truck tried again to overheat again.

The hood release thing didn't seem to work. Until I got back behind the wheel and drove about 10 feet. Fortunately the manual part of the release is pretty fussy, too, so the hood didn't fly up into my face.

The coolant overflow bottle seems low, or empty. I'm not tall enough to tell. I am, however, tall enough to look into the back of my truck and find that someone stole my bottle of coolant.

The front end made a few nasty clunky noises heading over to HC.

Apparently I had a Dr's appt yesterday. Actually it was for last week, but it was rescheduled for yesterday. Apparently the clinic works on a "If we don't hear from you that means 'yes'" means. Sadly, given how many people who use it may not have access to a phone regularly, that may be the best way for them to operate.

In related news, I read somewhere, & I'm still not sure I read it right, that Michigan is apparently a state where a cellphone without a plan (or some kind of service) is NOT required to be able to call 911.

I did, however, get my new mailbox key.

One of the big differences in Detroit-area weather vs. Pittsburgh-area weather, outside of the obvious More Sunshine, is that because Detroit isn't in a valley like Pittsburgh advanced weather forecasts are usually accurate. In Pittsburgh I always believed that used a Magic 8 (or 1000) Ball to guess at the weather past 24 hours, and even the 24 hour forecast could be a crapshoot.

However most of eastern MI, especially south-eastern MI, is flatter than the top of my head, so when they say "for 3-ish days it's gonna be cloudy and it's gonna snow off and on" I tend to believe them. Based on last year they seemed to be correct.

As of Tuesday evening the forecast for Wed and Thu both called for snow off and on with each day getting up to an inch of accumulation. It was fairly calm during the day Wed but by the time I went to sleep thing were well covered.

Imagine my surprise when at 10 am this morning the sun was shining brightly. I dismissed it as a fluke, but at noon when I went to make some food there was still sun streaming through the blinds. After feeding my face things were still sunny so I peered outside the kitchen window. It looked like the ground was white but the walks were well salted, so I started the Dressing Ritual, which as you know can take a couple of hours all told. And not from putting on my makeup and styling my hair.

By the time I opened my front door the sun was still shining. The sky was mostly blue with a few scattered clouds. My deck was liberally coated with salt, as was most of the sidewalk. The area around my truck was completely devoid of anything frozen. Stupid Truck was a bit difficult to start, but it's 15F and the oil really should get changed.

First stop: Mailbox. For some reason the complexes here tend to use "gang mailboxes". At this complex *all* of the mailboxes are in 6 or 7 mailbox-units in one place. Each unit has 10 or 12 mailboxes plus a "packages" box which can handle a small box. If you get a package the carrier puts it in the extra box and puts the key in your mailbox. Each individual mailbox is about 2" high, maybe a little less.

I pulled up next to the mailboxes and got out to open my mailbox, which would not take my key. Not "key would not turn", but "key will not go into lock at all." I spent a while pondering "Is this really the right key?" (it's the only mailbox-sized key on the ring). After a while I gave up and paged the maintenance number. Normally I'd call the front office but they seem to have lost yet another complex manager (two in the 7? months I've lived there) so there's just voicemail.

The maintenance guy, who had ironically been in and out of an apartment right next to the mailboxes while I had been playing "stupid key why won't you work" (but I'd never met him before so I hadn't known he was the maint guy), called me back quickly and came right (back) over. By the time he got there another resident was struggling to get her mailbox open. Unlike me, her key went in, just wouldn't turn. He put a squirt of one of those lock-de-icer stuffs into her lock and it opened right up. He put some in mine and... hell, even he couldn't get my key in there.

Unfortunately there's nothing more he could do today. He said he'd have to wait for the carrier to come tomorrow so he could replace the lock. Fun, fun!

Fortunately the weather for the next week or so is leaning mostly towards "cold as hell and sunny". Brrr.

I'm still working on various thoughts on trying to get a network at home. I may have to resort to getting a phone line and dirt cheap DSL. More later.

Meanwhile, I've found that between having no network at home and no stereo in the truck I spend a lot of time rattling around between the rocks in my head. I get an idea and it starts bouncing around and in time really gains speed.

On the outside this is a good thing -- thinking is always a good thing, right? Except that when what I'm thinking about is something that's got me disgruntled the "alone time" only seems to increase the gruntle.

I know that part of it is amplified by my mental state -- my life in general, plus the extra anxiety of the icy wintertime that keeps me housebound. It's really easy to amplify the bitter when you ARE bitter.

I suppose the next few days will add "bitter cold" -- the snow & ice are coming tonight, along with high winds it's supposed to alternate rain and snow until late Thursday, when the real temperature will be a single digit and the wind chill much lower. I will likely not be out of the house before Friday, maybe Saturday, depending on how much (or even IF) the complex gets shoveled and/or salted, as needed. I just bought some sidewalk-salt-stuff, but that nothing-to-grab-onto step off of my front "deck" still scares the crap out of me. I struggle with it when the ground is dry. [I hadn't intended to stay in this apartment so long. I had hoped to be in cripple-people housing by now, but my own bungling, of course, has delayed that.]

Stay warm, people. My apartment is completely electric, so here's hoping the power doesn't go out, too.

The other day when I got home I sat down on my 10-15ish year old oak-frame futon/couch and BAMPF! found my ass on the floor. Actually it was a really loud BANG!

It's a good thing that the main reason I bought the thing (which, iirc, was about $500 when I bought it) was that it was guaranteed forever if it broke. And, of course, within a couple of years of buying the thing the company, a small independent shop in Pittsburgh which had until then been in business for about 20 yrs, promptly folded.

I may be able to prop up the bottomish part with milk crates. To be seen. In quasi-good news I was (obviously) able to get my ass offa the floor. My back-thigh muscles are apparently in much better shape than I would have expected.

Meanwhile either the transmission of stupid truck is about to cough up a lung or the front end is unhappy. Classic sign of a sad front end is extra play in the steering wheel, which I don't have, and that the problem lessens if I let up on the gas does imply transmission. Either way: Joy.

For obvious reasons I have been extra careful to pay attention to store packaging and prices lately. In one grocery store I thought buying a "bigger can" of tuna fish was a better buy, until I did the math and found out that it was way more expensive. And this of the store brand. (The added grrr here is that buying the smaller cans == more waste, even if it's recyclable metal.) In another example I found a store with a 10-pack of (store brand) frozed waffles that cost $1.59 and a 12-pack right next to it, same waffles, for $1.99. I guess most people think, "Oh there's more so it must be a better price." Sadly, I cannot do all this math in my head (ok, I can divide price by 10) but have to whip out pencil & paper. Yay long division. Glad my brain hasn't completely rotted away like everything else in my life.

In related news, my mom asked me what I wanted for Christmas. I told her "A millyun dollerz and a pony. 'Cause them's good eatin's." Maybe I shoulda asked for that scarf she was gonna knit me for my 30th birthday.

In more positive news... yeah. at the moment I got nothing. Sorry, I'm Morose Moose today.