There is no question in my mind ─ I am unworthy of existence.
No sunning this afternoon, thanks to vile preoccupation. I am even behind on the day's content assignment for the post I have under construction at one of my six hosted websites ─ I must turn my attention there in short order.
I am only posting today to bring attention to a pair of health-related articles.
The first concerns a product I have been on the alert for locally ─ perhaps for as long as the past couple of months. I am likely going to have to order some from Amazon.
The product is a sort of jam-like preserve known as triphala:
Triphala has a reputation for being effective in dealing with far more conditions than cancer alone. Two good additional articles from early last year were published at Healthline.com:
I performed an Amazon search for "triphala" at the top of this post, as you may have noticed. However, I don't understand why I only see products presented as capsules and powders ─ I thought that triphala came as a sort of condiment. Perhaps probe into that before making any purchase ─ as said, I just am not up to the task right now.
[My apology: I was mistakenly confusing triphala with an entirely different product called chyawanprash ─ which I would also love to sample and keep in stock.]
The second article's topic relates to a product I had not before heard about, but which now has me very interested ─ spinach extract:
Rather than waste any more of my time blogging here in the afternoon, for the past three consecutive days I have instead added an extra half day's worth of content to the post I have under construction at one of my six hosted websites.
I have a targeted amount of content that I seek to supply in such posts as my daily "content assignment."
As well, today was the second consecutive day in which I performed a seven-minute plank.
But returning to the website post that I am working on, I believe that it was yesterday that I settled upon not only drastically reducing the amount of time I spend blogging, but I may even give up my six hosted websites entirely.
This drastic step would be undertaken in October upon the attainment of my next birthday ─ it will be my 70th.
I retired back in early April 2011, and since then my life has only degraded due to a wife who will not stop dragging me deeper and deeper into credit debt.
For several years now, I have been contemplating making my 70th birthday my last birthday ─ sometime during the ensuing year, I will meet my end.
Rather than actually cause its conclusion by my own hand, I will instead put myself 'out there' and begin taking extended long walks such as I engaged throughout most of my earlier adult life. I have become housebound, and this must cease.
The walking will of course prove beneficial for my health; but it will also probably bring me into exposure to public elements with whom I do not normally have any contact. After all, I live in Surrey ─ the Whalley area ─ and it has a reputation for violence.
When I was a younger man, I was at home in the night when it came to venturing on long walks. But I was also a very good runner ─ putting in a hard five-mile run was practically nothing. Thus, if I ever had met with a physical threat that I was unable to deal with through my own prowess, there was no likelihood that anyone posing the threat would have been able to outrun me.
Only an accurately discharged firearm would have brought me down.
I can no longer run, however ─ a result of knee surgery I underwent in early November 2010 to reattach my left leg's quadriceps tendon to my kneecap (patella). It effectively disabled me; but due to my reclusive personality, I was doubly disabled in that I never could develop the ability to relearn how to run.
I would feel too much shame for anyone to witness the spectacle this former hard runner would present as he sought to find his legs once more.
I do not drive, so it is not possible for me to get away to somewhere secluded where I could have practiced running in private. And so in essence, I have been nigh 'hamstrung' ─ although of course that term references thigh muscles that were unaffected by my knee accident and surgery.
I spend anywhere from six to eight or more hours a day seated on my behind working on one of those website posts and also my blog.
The website post I am currently involved in has as its subject matter an online medium I had never before heard of ─ something called Wattpad. It was a day or two ago that I concluded that it might be within me to actually find my place as a writer ─ if I applied myself with anywhere near the diligence that I have been using on my websites and this blog for well over a decade, and without any sign of reward whatsoever for the life I have meanwhile wasted.
So we shall see. That key birthday if but approximately two months and two weeks away.
The walks would initially be rather small as I redeveloped my ability, so I would have time to try my hand at writing. But soon enough, I would be finding myself in parts of Surrey where I could well meet with violence.
Should such violence find me, I am prepared to give up my life in whatever deadly confrontation may result. After all, why not? I have no worthwhile life ─ and no hope or promise of ever having one.
But I wish to bring attention to a few other topics now.
I signed a petition this morning that relates to that awful toxic herbicide ingredient, glyphosate.
What if insurance companies stopped underwriting corporations that produce and sell this poison? The corporations like Bayer / Monsanto would then have to deal entirely on their own with the financial repercussions of the lawsuits that are successfully levelled at them in the courts.
I had never even realized that such corporations might have insurance coverage to help meet the cost of the damages they are judged to have caused and legally must make right.
The petition is apparently going to be directed at four of the major insurance companies ─ Manulife, State Farms, Prudential, and Allianz ─ and it will be calling upon them to cease backing the corporations involved in keeping products like Roundup in the marketplace.
I want to bring my younger brother's attention to that article, for his daughter is a certified welder ─ one of the seven dangerous occupations where cancer is concerned.
The other article was intriguing in its implications, and it linked to a TED Talk that I want to try and watch. What if we really could regenerate ourselves ─ our bodies ─ to some remarkable degree?
My older half-sister briefly visited me early last afternoon ─ her second consecutive day doing so.
She lives possibly a 45-minute to an hour's drive to the east, but her daughter lives in the other direction from me ─ maybe a 20-minute drive.
Apparently some sort of arrangement was made between them on Thursday that involved an appointment with a bank, so my half-sister had to return yesterday to keep the 3:00 p.m. appointment.
Anyway, in lieu of her and I ever getting together for a drink or a meal somewhere, she brought me a case (15-pack) of Miller High Life beer.
I would never knowingly buy a 'lite' beer, which this Molson Coors Canadian-brewed product is at 4.6% alcohol, but I will certainly accept it as a gift.
My younger brother and I sat up especially late last night, and he got wickedly drunk for it because he 'graduated' late in the evening from the beer he had been drinking to Scotch.
We watched (via our T9 Android 8.1 TV Box that only I can operate) two episodes each of Gotham and Beyond, and then an episode of WPC 56, by which time it was midnight and my brother voiced that it was probably late enough to call it quits for the night.
But I wanted to see if he remembered an old song ─ I had sent out a link to it on Thursday afternoon to over 30 people in my Earthlink 'Address Book.'
This was the E-mail I sent out:
Seven Little Girls Sitting in the Backseat
Very early Thursday morning ─ it
wasn't even dawn as yet ─ I was listening to an online radio
station that features songs from the 1950s, and this one came up:Seven Little Girls Sitting in the Backseat.
As that Wikipedia link says, the
familiarPaul Evans' version was recorded in 1959.
Well, I did a little research and found
out that a version of him performing the song was recorded back on
January 16, 1960 ─ this is for those of you who may be old enough,
but can't quite yet remember the song:
Lucky 'Fred,' huh? I dug how Fred keeps
popping up behind the 'girls' later in the song as if to aggravate
poor Paul who has to do all the driving.
I've had the song running through my
head ever since finding that video ─ so I'm now trying to spread
around that harmless bit of 'earworm' infection.
You may be surprised to learn that the
YouTube account where I found that video is actually Paul Evans' very
own!
The young man in the video is now 81
years old ─ time sure sucks Big Time.
Well, my brother remembered the song, so I opted to try one other video ─ Pink Shoelaces by Dodi Stevens.
He remembered that song, too.
I had fetched up the songs through the YouTube 'app' that is downloaded into our Android TV Box.
That should have been it for the night, but YouTube suddenly began playing another music video from the same era...and then another, and another. It was doing so automatically.
At least a couple further times my brother voiced that he was set to go to bed, but he couldn't resist the next song that would start playing.
And each Scotch he poured himself as his last was only a prelude to the next one.
It was approaching 2:00 a.m. by the time we'd had enough of sitting up, and he was staggeringly drunk. It actually hurt me to see him like that because I felt responsible for tempting him to sit up and thereby keep hitting his supply of Scotch.
It was well after 11:00 a.m. this morning before he got up; and shortly after 1:30 p.m., he was back in bed to rest up further in order to handle getting out for the afternoon to start drinking again at his usual frequented bar where his girlfriend Bev works.
Early into the lengthy music session last night, he mentioned recently having a dream about Pat K., an old girlfriend of his from around 1969.
He claimed to have not thought of her in quite a number of years, and he wondered if maybe the dream happened because of something that had befallen her ─ some psychic connection.
Whatever the case, in his dream, he was again high school age, as was she.
By the way, it was unexpectedly pouring rain when we went to bed. It had done something similar two or three nights before ─ rain very hard in the wee hours of the night, and the sky then clear up by the morning.
I am badly pressed for time, but I want to link to a couple of articles of a health-related nature.
Ever hear of 'pink noise'? I don't think I ever had.
Might it also actually aid in boosting one's ability to sleep? If so, then for certain this would be worthy trying.
I checked YouTube, and there are indeed some audios of pink noise ─ two I noticed are even a minimum of nine hours in duration! That's overkill for me ─ I can't even sleep for five hours straight.
The second article relates to a nutritional supplement that I am unable to afford on my limited retirement pension, but I sure wish that I could:
I've not heard of pyrroloquinoline quinone (PQQ) before, but there are lots of articles about it online that you can easily locate ─ I have no time to link to any, as much as I would like to.
As for why I say I cannot afford the stuff, check out the Amazon U.S. search that I did at the bottom of this post ─ the products that are shown seem to generally be in the 20-mg dose that is mentioned in the article as being effective, but there are generally only 30 doses in a bottle.
Since I live in Canada, I would be obliged to order from Amazon Canada ─ but a quick scan I did only located one product that was below $30 for 30 capsules. Everything else seemed to be well over $30.
I can't afford to be spending a dollar or more for a single pill or capsule of any nutritional supplement.
It's the old story proving once again that only the relatively wealthy can afford to have an ideal and truly healthy diet.
I want to close now with a four-image collage that Google Photos created today from photos I took exactly five years ago (July 27, 2014):
If I recall correctly, the photos were taken on a stretch of Surrey railway tracks (Southern Railway of British Columbia) ─ a stretch located approximately between Nordel Way near Scott Road (on this Google map, the tracks are somewhat along Nordel Way to the right of the intersection) and 128th Street & 82nd Avenue (Google map).
These are the four original photos, beginning with the left column:
That was a favourite section of tracks for me when I used to go there to sun and drink beer in the 1990s and 2000s ─ very often with my late old friend Larry Ernest Blue.
At noon today I received word of a Canadian-relevant petition that I felt I should sign.
I will let you read its details for yourself so that you can make your own decision, but I will tell you that it involves an effort to persuade the Canadian government that Canadians absolutely do not want the deadly pesticide cholrpyrifos approved for use and distribution in our precious nation.
The notification I received via E-mail was mistitled where I was concerned, for I had indeed heard of the chemical before ─ the heading in the message I received was:
"the most dangerous pesticide" you've never heard of
A concern that gnaws at me is that the petition is going to be directed at Health Canada.
This is the very same department whose obtuse and / or corrupt decision-makers earlier this year re-approved the toxic herbicide glyphosate for broad use throughout Canada for another 15 years because they deemed it harmless ─ and any other judgments elsewhere in the world that have found otherwise concerning it are apparently somehow blatantly wrong.
Only the unparalleled geniuses at Health Canada ─ and of course, the benevolent Bayer / Monsanto giants in the Pharmaceutical Industry advising Health Canada ─ have the enlightenment to see beyond the worldwide hysteria around glyphosate.
It is utterly sickening to me.
We can't even be free of this poison in our wilderness areas because the government commonly sprays the chemical all over the damned place ─ as a couple of examples, see:
The government always lies to protect itself, so we cannot believe them when they profess small-scale usage of glyphosate.
I expect that they hope to rain down chlorpyrifos all over Canada with the same imbecilic liberality.
Please, if you don't want the pesticide chlorpyrifos approved and used here in Canada, then at least sign the petition ─ it likely won't do any good where Health Canada is concerned, but anyone who is cares should at least do that much.
On to something different now.
I watch a lot of T.V. via our T9 Android 8.1 TV Box, and I wanted to comment on the disappointing finales of a couple of series my younger brother and I finally got around to watching.
The first finale I want to cite is that of the series Travelers.
Season three was its finish, from what I have read. However, I found the finale to be unclear.
This is Wikipedia's synopsis of that episode that was titled "Protocol Omega":
Protocol Omega means the Director is no longer intervening in this timeline as either the Traveler program succeeded in its mission or it has totally failed. When Jeff visits Marcy to offer his condolences, she realizes he has been overwritten by 001 and eventually kills herself to prevent him obtaining Ellis' backdoor code from her brain. 001 uploades his consciousness to the internet, enabling him to exist into the future and ultimately gain control. He sends the consciousnesses of his followers into world leaders, provoking the Russians and Chinese to launch nuclear warheads against the US. Yates blames MacLaren and his team for hastening, rather than preventing, the end of mankind. MacLaren uses 001’s machine to send his mind back to the August 2001 day when his host first met Kat. He tells her to give John a second chance, later drops off a warning about Helios, then on September 11 arrives at the same office high in the World Trade Center a few minutes before 001's expected arrival, meant to kick off the Traveler program. MacLaren sends an email, knowing the Director will find it, stating: "Traveler program failed. Do not send 001." MacLaren stays in the office – as 001 was supposed to do in the original plan – to await the attacks. The non-Traveler Marcy, showing no signs of hydrocephalus and working as a nurse, happens to sit beside David on a bus, and he strikes up a conversation, renewing their inevitable connection for a third time. The Director decides that Traveler program version one has failed, and begins version two...
Until actually reading that, I did not understand exactly how 'FBI Agent' MacLaren was supposed to have prevented Traveler 001 from ever being sent back in time by the Director.
I also didn't realize that MacLaren was supposed to be standing at a window in one of the World Trade Towers just before the first of the deadly airliner strikes, watching for that first plane.
Was he, then, giving up his life because he would never have one with Kat after he sacrificed his relationship with her by encouraging her to give her betrothed a second chance after 'John' had stood her up?
The other series finale that has me somewhat bothered was the second season of True Detective ─ each season of True Detective is an entirely different storyline independent of anything involving the others. Basically, each season is a series in itself.
Wikipedia has an unusually long synopsis of the season two finale that was titled "Omega Station."
It still didn't clear up everything that I didn't understand, but I guess nothing can ─ we can only surmise. I am led to that conclusion by various recaps I have now read ─ here are three examples:
The most annoying thing for me after the deaths of some of the main characters was that the corrupt police Lieutenant Kevin Burris who himself personally killed or help kill two of the heroic 'good' cops seems to have gotten to live happily ever after.
But my younger brother is home now and watching T.V., so I must join him ─ only I understand how to operate our Android TV Box.
Whether or not God truly does have His foot on the back of my neck, keeping me pressed face-down into the fetid mire, this is where I am.
My older maternal half-sister visited for awhile today ─ perhaps for as much as a half hour ─ but declining to come into the house. My younger brother was upstairs in his bedroom resting for his usual afternoon foray that would see him ending up drinking somewhere and not returning home until sometimes in the evening.
He emerged from his bedroom soon after she had left to pay a visit to her daughter; and then he left, citing a 2:00 p.m. afternoon appointment of some sort.
It would not at all surprise me if I then spent as many as four hours drinking deep of utter foulness before I finally sought the nap I needed and should have embraced as soon as my brother had gone.
I squandered quite a sunny afternoon by remaining shut up indoors, and I also shunned the backyard toolshed exercises that were scheduled for today. My sole exercising today has been a 6¾-minute plank.
I have nothing more to say. No one as worthless and morally vile as I am should continue to be.
I am done with burning myself out trying to blog on a daily basis and seeing absolutely no reward for the effort.
Yesterday was a bad day for me anyway ─ despair and futile rage. My wife is killing me with debt, and my two working stepsons are devoted to being freeloaders or parasites. I had managed to set aside $1,600 of my pension money that were earmarked for eradicating my VISA card's balance, and to also allow me to make a few purchases of some nutritional supplements and another item or two from Amazon; but the three of them stuck me with the full monthly mortgage that was scheduled to be debited from my chequing account yesterday or today.
I had to transfer over $1,200 of the precious $1,600 to be entirely secure that the deficit in my chequing account's balance would be comfortably lifted. And I have since expended $300 toward that VISA balance.
No offer of any financial help from my wife and her sons, despite me pointedly letting her and her oldest son know this past Friday that mortgage day was probably to be yesterday (the debit was delayed until today, however).
My wife only seems to work in order to party and / or spend hours long into the night throwing away money at a casino nearby the Thai restaurant she works at.
There is no out for me ─ not from my empty marriage, nor the crushing debt that has me imprisoned here in my home. I don't drive, so I am basically housebound, with my 70th birthday less than three months into the future.
God doesn't care for weaklings ─ He's only impressed by the powerful and the takers. I deluded myself most of my life thinking and believing otherwise.
I'll have that 70th birthday, but I see no reason to live on to a 71st birthday. Sometime during that intervening year, it may as well end for me.
On this past Sunday, into the latter afternoon I ventured forth on the four-mile round trip hike to the nearest government liquor store so that I could add two dozen cans of strong (8% alcohol) beer to the supply that I do my best to keep in stock. Approximately halfway home, I was approached with conversation by a rather rough-looking chap whom I might estimate to have been in his 40s.
He was fairly lean and sinewy, and seemed reluctant to have our conversational exchange come to an end. And I ended up probably losing a half hour talking with him.
He was seated on a public swath of lawn and under a tree, enjoying the shade. Earl by name he was, and I had the impression that he was resident in a nearby subsidized highrise, but he also seemed to be somehow semi-homeless. A blonde soon joined him whom he identified as his wife ─ possibly Rose by name.
Maybe his common-law wife?
She came from the building, and bore a blanket and a number of items ─ it was almost like they were about to picnic at that spot next to a sidewalk.
She moved with a suspicious degree of energy ─ which is to day, she seemed to me like she might be a drug-taker. Earl had professed to have given up drinking, but he said naught of alternate 'self-medication.'
Earl identified himself as a Newfie, but had lived out this way for many, many years.
Rose ─ who was probably around his age ─ seemed initially uncertain of me, but she quickly grew comfortable and talked as much as did Earl. She was attractive in a hard sort of way, and I rather liked how she seemed to be eyeing me in my sleeveless top ─ I do not look my age, and my arms were bulkier with muscle by far than were Earl's.
I even thought that Rose looked most appealing as a cuddle partner.
Please keep in mind that my wife and I have not been physically intimate since March 2013, so I have not enjoyed that sort of closeness with anyone since then. Sometimes, I crave it as surely as if it is a life-sustaining need. And in some ways, it truly is ─ we all need human contact of a physical nature.
Anyway, I soon had my attention drawn by Earl to a knife he was wearing on his belt ─ they assured me that despite what is commonly believed here in Surrey, it is not illegal to carry an unconcealed knife of any length. Earl claimed that with the deserved reputation for violence that Surrey has ─ especially there in the Whalley area ─ his knife is a deterrent to being attacked.
I showed them the tactical pen that I carry, and both were quite impressed.
Nevertheless, if a knife in its sheath is legal, I can see the value of having something like that on one's person. And substantiating the legality of this, I found the following:
Carrying a knife is legal in B.C., as long it is not spring-loaded and not concealed, other than by a sheath.
Once I have my 70th birthday in October, my thinking is that I am going to start undertaking the development of my ability to handle long walks once again. I am going to give up spending the hours per day that I have devoted for the past decade or so trying to generate a second income online ─ it is nothing to waste eight hours a day on my six hosted websites and this useless blog (and its now-private predecessor that I started up in September 2008).
The purpose of the walking would be to improve my fitness and health; but ultimately, I will likely ─ as I become adapted to extensive walking again ─ be venturing into locales where I could easily meet with deadly violence.
I do not want to have to ever suicide, so exposing myself to the potential of deadly violence is a promising alternative to taking my life by my own hand.
Before I bring this short post to a close, I want to spotlight an interesting article on organ donation ─ and why NOT to be an organ donor.
Last October I had to get my two pieces of provincial photo identification renewed, for their valid lifespan is five years and that deadline was reached as of my birthday that month.
In renewing the identification, I obligingly signed an organ donation agreement. Only afterward did I read an article on why being such a donor is not always an ideal situation to find oneself in.
This article is of more recent vintage, but is very much along the same theme:
This quote from that article made an especial amount of sense:
A person can be declared “brain dead” when their heart is still beating—which the brainstem controls.
But that stipulation makes no sense. How can someone be legally “brain dead” when their brain is still telling their heart to beat?
We would never bury a “brain dead” person with a still-beating heart (except in a grisly and macabre tale from Edgar Allen Poe). So, why are we allowing their vital organs to be removed with a still-beating heart…a normal pulse, blood pressure, normal color, normal temperature, and other normal vital signs of life?
Surgeons administer paralyzing drugs to “brain dead” patients to prevent muscular movements during organ harvesting. And when the body is cut open, the heart rate increases and blood pressure skyrockets as a normal physiologic reaction to the pain!
The brain stem controls these normal reactions. But according to a legal definition of “brain death,” no part of the brain should still be functioning…including the brain stem.
I confess that I do regret signing that consent ─ not that I want to live at any and all cost. I have already made it clear that I see no real hope of ever being delivered from my joyless, debt-filled life other than through death. But I have never felt too easy at the image of my body being butchered for its organs.
Ideally, I would prefer to die somewhere in the wilderness where my corpse would remain untampered with by my fellow man ─ who just cannot seem to leave a body unautopsied, no matter how apparent the cause of death.
Enough of that ─ I finish with a few more photos that my wife took in June of last year in Rome when she added to our debt by visiting a sister of hers who has made Italy her second home.
The digital camera's date setting had not been adjusted or updated for that trip, so the metadata embedded within the photos which indicates that they were taken on June 7 (2018) is only a very good estimate of the date.
The first two photos are selfies of my wife:
Some research I have just now done finds that the pizza restaurant shown at the right in this next photo is Trattoria Pizzeria La Caravella di Magistri Luigi (Google map). Since the photos that follow it were all taken withing a span of five minutes of this photo, then all locations were very nearby that location.
By the way, I am still trying to do a daily plank of 6½ minutes, but they are almost excruciating. I barely held out yesterday.
Last evening was another late one for me ─ I can blame my hapless wife for it, I suppose.
She had spent the day in bed, for she never came home until after dawn and likely didn't retire until nigh 7:30 a.m.
It was just after 6:30 p.m. when she finally emerged from the bedroom, and was soon busy cooking, and cheerfully interacting with her two sons and me.
I knew that she was probably going to be leaving us for the weekend, since she generally spends her weekends somewhere in Vancouver and only stays here at night during the workweek because the Thai restaurant she works at is out this way.
Such is my marriage.
My younger brother had not napped midday as he usually does before he heads away for the afternoon to end up drinking somewhere. Thus, I was fully expecting that I would be able to get to bed quite early that evening.
We tend to watch our T.V. shows through our T9 Android 8.1 TV Box, but I am the only one of us who knows how to operate it. The usual routine for an evening of T.V. is that he and I will sit up until into the midnight hour watching episodes of a few of the shows that we enjoy.
However, if he lapses into unconsciousness at any point in our evening, I will cancel whatever show was tuned in, switch off the Android TV Box, and leave him with the only news channel that we can receive through the basic cable package that we subscribe to.
When he regains his senses, he is then left to himself for the remainder of his late evening ─ I will be here upstairs where I keep my computer.
Well, as it happened last evening, after he was home fairly early in the evening from wherever he had been drinking, he began falling unconscious during the very first T.V. episode I tuned in ─ a Travelers episode.
At least a couple of times, he suddenly began snoring.
But I was trapped. My wife was still home, and in fact she had joined us to watch some of the episode while she enjoyed some of the supper she had cooked up for everyone.
And so it was that I lost my chance to go upstairs and get to bed early. By the time my wife left us around 9:00 p.m., my brother thereafter retained full consciousness and I was on steady Android-duty until late into the midnight hour.
We watched a second episode of Travelers, and then two episodes of Beyond. We finished up with the debut episode of the latest (2019) season of The Durrells.
I only consumed one can of the strong (8% alcohol) beer that I keep in stock; and although I mainly slept well, I rose once ─ perhaps around 5:00 a.m. at latest ─ just to turn on and log into my computer so that it would be all set for later use.
I probably managed to get back to sleep, for it was about an hour later when I checked the time again and got myself up so that I could get to work on the day's final content assignment for the post I wanted to publish at one of my six hosted websites.
I was unable to do this in a single go, for by the time I was half completed the assignment, I needed to return to bed for more sleep.
It was around 8:30 a.m.; and my brother had already risen, showered, and was downstairs having instant coffee and reading the Saturday morning edition of the Vancouver Sun that I subscribe to.
I had not neglected my daily plank ─ I am presently performing 6½-minute planks, but this morning I overshot that limit by just over 15 seconds. Nevertheless, we shall just say that I performed a 6¾-minute plank.
I slept quite well at returning to bed, for it was about two hours later when I checked the time and rose back up.
Oddly, my brother was gone. I had thought that maybe he only went out for a haircut and would anon be back, but he remained away (it is 7:29 p.m. as I type these words).
I resumed work on the Lawless Spirit post, and at last got it published: Holistic Medicines Ⅱ.
Early in the afternoon this very sunny day, I went out to the backyard toolshed for the exercising session that was scheduled for there ─ I was to have exercised here in the house yesterday, but having my wife tying up the bedroom all the day long contributed to its cancellation. And it was the first time in probably at least a couple of months that I missed performing any exercise at all during an entire day (although I did do a plank).
I did very well in the toolshed ─ the day's break may have helped with that. And dressed in my runners and gym-style shorts, my bodyweight may not have been any more than around 186 pounds.
I took this video clip of myself afterward and gave it the following description at YouTube:
This was almost painful for me to do!
I took this short video clip of myself on a very sunny Saturday afternoon (July 20, 2019) while trying to present myself as being comfortably relaxed, but it is clear that I have trouble handling a spotlight. I was practically squirming with discomfort in front of the camera.
My voice was a little hoarse at the time. And I was not speaking as loudly as I would have liked to, for we have a small backyard and I didn't want neighbours overhearing me and thereby bring attention to myself. In fact, one set of neighbours has an upper-floor sundeck that gives them a view of almost our entire backyard.
I could have tightened my abdominals and spread my shoulders / chest to appear better toned and muscular, but I wanted to be more honest about my physique.
My 70th birthday is a little under three months away; and dressed as I was in the video, I weighed around 186 pounds at a height of a tad over five feet and 10 inches.
I have never exercised in a gym; and the only weight I ever occasionally use here at home is a 43½-pound dumbbell that leaves me limited as to what I can do with it.
I have no workout machines or devices. All else I engage are exercises like pull-ups and push-ups.
I also started doing a daily plank four to six weeks ago, and at present have 6½ minutes as my targeted daily minimum ─ I managed seven minutes two days ago, and did 6¾ minutes this morning.
But those were almost accidental. You see, rather than torturing myself by constantly look at my cellphone's timer, I instead slowly count to 300 first ─ 300 seconds are of course five minutes. But I try to count slower than one number or count per second so that by the time I am done, I will ideally be around six-minute mark. And so it happens that sometimes I count extra slowly and find myself already over my present daily 6½-minute plank target.
I'm unsure just where I intend to go with these daily planks ─ for example, does anyone perform a 10 minute plank on a daily basis? People who are good at planks and who write about the exercise never seem to declare just how long it is that they personally plank as a daily norm, do they?
So yes, that's me, if anyone has ever wondered.
It is now almost 9:00 p.m., and I want to get this post over with ─ my brother may be showing up at any moment now.
But I want to refer anyone interested in the topic of the concept of 'God' to have a look at the following article:
Although I am not a church-goer, I have always believed in the existence of God ─ even though I have only ever considered myself to be an actual 'Christian' for a short period in my life.
Just in the past year or so, I have come to quit thinking of God as some spirit-formed version of us, although He is supposed to have made us in His image ─ whatever 'spiritual' form He has, it may be anthropomorphic or humanoid in shape.
But I no longer believe that God thinks anything like we do, nor that He has the same sense of value for life that we do. After all, He created everything, and it was He who mandated that everything must die.
It was He who created flesh-eating creatures that would prey upon the living bodies of weaker creatures. Since He is the giver of all life ─ He has an infinity of it to give ─ He does not regard it with the same preciousness that you or I might.
He knows that if He chose, He could resurrect anything that died, even though he does not do so. Everything is meant to die ─ and most of the time, it is a very violent death.
It does not have to be that way ─ God could have made life such that creatures were all vegetarian, and they would breed so very sparingly that there would never have been any chance of any of them overpopulating the various ecosystems of our planet.
But he chose instead to have prey creatures of all kinds that would die in horrific, excruciating, and bloody fashion so the flesh-eaters could live.
And so often, we become victims of some of these deadly flesh-eaters, despite the fact that overall we have dominance of our Earth.
You don't want to die. You don't want you child or your parent or your sibling or your dearest friend to die.
But you are looking at death from the perspective of a limited and fleshly being who will exist for a comparatively short time in the scheme of everything.
This is not a perspective God has. He is never imperilled. He never knows fear or dread or horror such as can we. It is alien to Him.
It is why in the Old Testament, He had no compunction in ordering the Children of Israel to occasionally go forth and put entire villages and even collections of people considered to be 'tribes' to the sword ─ every man, woman, and child of them.
Could not the very young children have been spared and raised to believe as did the Children of Israel? Certainly. But God was making a point.
Likewise with the Flood. All human life ─ except for those on the Ark ─ had to die. Even little tiny newborns, or those not yet born because they were still within their pregnant mothers.
This is God ─ the creator of horrific, slaughtering dinosaurs long before Man, The Being who is witnessing the awful deaths of unimaginable numbers of human beings and animals every single millisecond that we have existed.
He is unaffected by all that colossal amount of death ─ a soft and tender Entity would go mad from the toll of it all...or else become so innured that it becomes meaningless.
But life and death are nothing to the God who is the Creator and Giver of all life.
If He chose, any life could be immediately restored; and so, a life's extinguishment means nothing.
Oh gosh, I am babbling on ─ I have to stop.
I want to link to two final articles.
You must have heard by now something about the discovery that a number of cellphone users have been found to be developing actual bony spurs on their skulls where their cellphones have been pressed during use.
Today's post will be short due to a paucity of time.
I avoided a hangover overnight by only having one can of the strong (8% alcohol) beer last evening that I do my best to keep in stock, for my younger brother just barely managed to sustain consciousness after arriving home from wherever he had been drinking.
This meant that I had to sit up late and operate our T9 Android 8.1 TV Box, fetching episodes of a few of the T.V. shows we follow.
He doesn't know how to operate the device.
I also had that can of beer earlier than I have been starting my evening drinking of late, for it occurred to me that imbibing too close to my bedtime was likely a contributing factor in how severely the alcohol was smiting me.
We've now finished watching all episodes of the two seasons of Ozark, but there is to be a third season to be on the lookout for.
It was nearing 1:00 a.m. by the time I was to bed, and I hate these late nights. I don't understand how it is that my brother sometimes clings to consciousness for streaks of consecutive evenings, forcing me to sit up late like that.
I never roused overnight sufficiently to wonder on the time until nigh 6:00 a.m. Nevertheless, a little further sleep ensued, and then just ahead of 7:00 a.m. I was disturbed by my wife entering the bedroom.
She had worked the previous day at her friend's Thai restaurant, but must only have recently come home after likely partying all night.
When she exited the bedroom to probably use the bathroom, I got up and dressed, for I still had the day's content assignment to deal with for the post I am nearly finished at one of my six hosted websites.
It may have been close to 7:30 a.m. by the time my wife at last put herself to bed, asking that I not wake her today ─ she usually has to be up by 10:00 a.m. in order to start readying for her 11:00 a.m. restaurant start.
Well, she was to be in bed for a bit over 11 hours!
And this is the big reason I have had so little blogging time. I have been unable to have my usual midday or early afternoon nap, and I have also been too ill-rested to care to bother having any exercise ─ I was scheduled to do so today with my 43½-pound dumbbell.
I never even felt up to taking in any Sun in the backyard.
Of course, I also lost the usual three or so hours from 10:00 a.m. onward when I reluctantly joined my younger brother in the living room to summon up some shows via our Android TV Box.
Michelle portrayed a fetching 40-year-old who was becoming ─ somewhat reluctantly ─ romantically involved with a 29-year-old.
In looking at the math, though, Michelle was probably at least 48 when the movie was filmed. But she sure was a delight, even if the movie itself was darned feeble.
Following the movie, I tuned in an episode of True Detective.
My brother never did get any bedrest afterward, and left very early in the afternoon. Thus, I am expecting that when he comes home this evening, he will be passing out and I will be able to get to bed early this evening.
Right now, it is 6:53 p.m. My wife has just finished turning off her shower after getting up from her long day in bed. I have no doubt that she will be leaving us in awhile, for she tends to spend her weekends somewhere in Vancouver.
Such is my marriage.
Oh! ─ I did get some exercise today! Before I got involved in T.V. with my brother this morning, I performed a 6½-minute plank.
Anyway, that exhausts all the time I have for this post, so it ends here.
