Urgan Shows Up, Does the Thing

[Urgan]

43 minutes ago, Sam Ashen said:

Going back to math:  I heard a rumor somewhere that a lot of kids struggled with calculus because they never developed skill with algebra.  As you put it, they sat in a classroom where algebra was taught, and (eventually) got a passing score on a standardized test, but they never actually learned it.  Do you still have skill in that area?

 

The only math I felt halfway comfortable with (at the time) was geometry and trig, weirdly enough. I got a little bit of algebra, but not enough to have any confidence. 

[Sam Ashen]

3 hours ago, Urgan said:

As I described it to my PhD father (to curb his enthusiasm a HAIR)

 

Something else dawns on me:  He might also love my stupid zetamac game!

 

If he has an iPhone or iPad, he might also like ninimaths.  It is free and has no ads.  There are in-game purchases to buy the guy coffee, beer, or noodles, but it is absolutely not intrusive.

 

EDIT:  (Spoiler)

This is the biggest score I have seen online.

 

 

[Urgan]

53 minutes ago, Sam Ashen said:

 

Something else dawns on me:  He might also love my stupid zetamac game!

 

If he has an iPhone or iPad, he might also like ninimaths.  It is free and has no ads.  There are in-game purchases to buy the guy coffee, beer, or noodles, but it is absolutely not intrusive.

 

EDIT:  (Spoiler)

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

This is the biggest score I have seen online.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

I imagine when he is aware enough to care about being idle he might get where he would want to give it a try. We shall see.

 

 

I just got out of the hospital. Dad got through surgery and was reviving a smidge where we could see. Visitor hours are tight. Will update when there is something meaningful to report.

[Sam Ashen]

58 minutes ago, Urgan said:

 

I imagine when he is aware enough to care about being idle he might get where he would want to give it a try. We shall see.

 

 

I just got out of the hospital. Dad got through surgery and was reviving a smidge where we could see. Visitor hours are tight. Will update when there is something meaningful to report.

 

I did not catch that the surgery was today.  Well, good luck.

[Urgan]

8/30/2018

Productivity

Recovery

Sleep - 18/25

2300 cals - 2177 : 2220

 

Aikido

Jo - 8/10 

Suwari Waza - 4/5

 

Adulting

Math - 4/5 - 46%



Soooooo much nothing got accomplished yesterday, goals-wise. Okay, not QUITE true, but close enough as to be hard to tell the difference. I took a half day of work, as work is closer to hospital than home is, so there you go. Nothing really got done there much, due to timing. Not much got eaten, either, until after 4:30--some kombucha, some smoked oysters, a protein bar, and after a three hour span of time, a small pack of M&Ms at the hospital. I saw Dad very briefly, only because once he comes out and starts reviving they'll let you see the patient no matter when it is for about 5 minutes and then you go back to prescribed visiting hours of every odd hour for a half hour. I scooted to go feed my parents' cats (and get rid of the headache I was cultivating like a rare tropical plant), who are on the other side of town, took a chicken breast fee from their fridge for my services (also deli chicken has all the sodium, y'all--so it was a two-fer, a life saver AND an experiment saver), stopped to get salad and went home. Half salad was eaten, all the napping, and then spaghetti carbonara with new Banzo spaghetti. Managed to overcook the pasta a bit, oh well. It was edible and I am a hero for not just saying to hell with all of it at that point. A lot of physical stress involved in Hospitaling, guys. First you have to get there, then you have to park, then you have to figure out which door to enter, then there's the matter of what floor are they on, and after that you sit your ass down and be happy to have a chair for however long to get a 5 minute glimpse of the man. SIGH. And then there's my mother, who is a small ball of furious vibration. She held up well, but I saw the happiest part of it since there wasn't enough time to develop an opinion about the situation and she was glad for company. 

 

Honestly the way people (re)act is more exhausting than the thing itself. 

 

I weighed 118.0lbs on 8/31 and I am not sure if this is more due to my macro genius or the above. I was so convinced it was the former early in the morning, but now that my brain has woken up it's raining on my parade hardcore. Oh well. More data needed.

[Mistr]

I'm glad you were able to be there for your mother. Keeping my fingers crossed for your dad.

 

I agree, hospitals are a high-stress environment. I am terrible at sitting still, so I make sure to bring knitting or a book. I'm not surprised that people start climbing the walls with nothing to occupy them for a long wait.

 

You are totally justified in being happy about your weight being where you want, regardless of the reason.

[Jord]

1 hour ago, Urgan said:

A lot of physical stress involved in Hospitaling, guys. First you have to get there, then you have to park, then you have to figure out which door to enter, then there's the matter of what floor are they on, and after that you sit your ass down and be happy to have a chair for however long to get a 5 minute glimpse of the man. SIGH. And then there's my mother, who is a small ball of furious vibration. She held up well, but I saw the happiest part of it since there wasn't enough time to develop an opinion about the situation and she was glad for company. 

 

Honestly the way people (re)act is more exhausting than the thing itself.  

 

Seriously. And then older waiting rooms are skimpy on the charger outlets. Newer ones are smart and have them every like 6 inches. Mr T's surgery in August took 4.5 hrs instead of 2 and the updates were useless "he's still in surgery it's going okay" if it is okay why is it taking so long? geez surgeons. Yer mom needs a dank cupcake or muffin at this point for sure.

 

I'm glad he is through it. How is he recovering? Was it open heart surgery?

[Urgan]

2 minutes ago, Jord said:

 

Seriously. And then older waiting rooms are skimpy on the charger outlets. Newer ones are smart and have them every like 6 inches. Mr T's surgery in August took 4.5 hrs instead of 2 and the updates were useless "he's still in surgery it's going okay" if it is okay why is it taking so long? geez surgeons. Yer mom needs a dank cupcake or muffin at this point for sure.

 

Thank God we just got new phones two weeks ago or this would have been an Issue as I stupidly started my voyage with my phone less than fully charged. Whoops. Ugh, in our case they didn't tell us when they started--I don't think a quadruple bypass takes 1.5 hours, guys. 

 

3 minutes ago, Jord said:

I'm glad he is through it. How is he recovering? Was it open heart surgery?

 

Low blood pressure means no painkiller for you, so that was a good time for him. Hopefully that's been corrected. It was, the full chest crack and whatnot. Breathing is on the No Fun list. 

[Kishi]

Glad to hear your Dad is on the other side of this thing. May he recover soon!

 

23 hours ago, Urgan said:

The only math I felt halfway comfortable with (at the time) was geometry and trig, weirdly enough. I got a little bit of algebra, but not enough to have any confidence.

 

I was the same way. Geometry and trig were nice, but algebra? Phaw.

[shaar]

Phewwww glad to hear the surgery went well and you all are at least on the other end of The Big Procedure.  Sending all the good thoughts, and def. some chill pills for your mom too, it sounds like she could use some.......

 

Hospitals are the WORST, like not like I'm a germophobe or anything, but I'm always on heightened alert when I'm in there.  Also not the comfiest places to sit for 1.5 hours (+) too...........

[Urgan]

23 hours ago, Kishi said:

Glad to hear your Dad is on the other side of this thing. May he recover soon!

 

Thanks. It's looking a little more up at this point than initially advertised. 

 

1 hour ago, shaar said:

Phewwww glad to hear the surgery went well and you all are at least on the other end of The Big Procedure.  Sending all the good thoughts, and def. some chill pills for your mom too, it sounds like she could use some.......

 

Hospitals are the WORST, like not like I'm a germophobe or anything, but I'm always on heightened alert when I'm in there.  Also not the comfiest places to sit for 1.5 hours (+) too...........

 

The smell is what gets me. And the labyrinth. 

 

I do have a funny story to tell about Friday, but for now suffice it to say Dad improved a lot in 24 hours and is at least sitting up in an (uncomfortable) chair. Talking and everything. 

[Urgan]

8/31/2018 - 9/3/2018

The part of my left tricep will be played by this monstrosity

Recovery

Sleep - 18/25

2300 cals - 2205 : 2263, 2414, 2329

 

Aikido

Jo - 8/10 

Suwari Waza - 4/5

 

Adulting

Math - 5/5

 

Friday

OHP

45         5

55         5

60         3

70         1

75         1

81         0

78         3x1

 

Bench

45         5

70         5

80         3

90         1

100       1

80         3x3

 

I promised you a funny story, didn't I? Well, this gym session was a real joke. 

 

...

 

 

...no? Okay then. Well my CNS didn't show up to this party, so lame things happened. Like my left arm basically wouldn't go when commanded, so the weight didn't even stay in the air very long. Stress, I am chalking it up to.

 

Then I went to work. It was fairly normal--a bit on the busier side of normal, if I'm being honest, until 'round about 2:30. Now my boss was out for the day, but another guy who is at about his level in the COC comes over and tells me that he has heard that my dad is in the hospital and tells me to go ahead and get out since everybody else is going to be leaving a smidge early anyway. This is about as close as could have been cut, because the next visiting hours were 3:00 - 3:30 and I was banking on hitting the 5PM slot initially. So I wrap my junk up and boogie on out and I have never flown down the highway faster in my life, guys. Like, had the wrong light caught me it might have ruined the whole thing. I pull into the parking deck and the FOURTH car pulls out and I zip in, jump out, and hustle into the hospital. I run into my mom in the lobby and due to the tight timeline I hadn't coordinated with her at all. Got to spend a bit more than the allotted time with Dad, so that was a success. He looked groggy and in pain, but he was sitting up in a chair and could talk and stuff. Hard to talk AND breathe when you have a drain tube sticking out of your ribs, but Details.

 

Went and did that grocery and dinner thing I do and then collapsed. The End.

 

Saturday

Squat

45           5

135         5

155         5

170         5

190         2

200         2x1

205         5x1

 

Deadlifts

155         5

175         3

195         1

215         1

230         3x1

 

I wasn't sure how these other sessions were going to go, given Friday's catastrophe of an attempt. But it went okay and I pushed myself pretty hard on deadlifts, even. Those 230s were difficult. 

 

Husband and a doctor friend visited Dad and they watched him walk--mostly unassisted in terms of help actually ambulating, but he did have an oxygen tank so that needed some care. A little improved over Friday, reports indicate.

 

Sunday

Bench

45         5

55         5

65         3

75         3

85         1

99         2x3

99.5      4x2--2RM PR +.5!!

 

OHP

45         3x5

55         3

68         1

65         5x3

 

Due to Labor Day, upper body session was done on Sunday. A rare instance of three-in-a-row gymming that didn't feel like hot garbage on the upper body afternoon session. This is rare. You'd think otherwise, but you'd be wrong lol. I squeaked out some triples at 99lbs and decided to go for that tiny PR. Nice of all of my arm to participate. It felt pretty good, hopefully it's reproducible in the early morning time. YOLO. 

 

After that I grabbed food and tooled on up to the hospital. Dad was off the oxygen and did his walk and ate some food that was not actual garbage and then napped. Then I went home and did the same. What an exciting life you are witnessing.

 

Monday

I got a text from Dad at 7:40AM that the hospital is releasing him. So he's out now and settled at home. Surgery was on Thursday and he got home just a few days later. He was plenty strong enough to take the stress of the surgery and I'm sure he's glad to have that dang drain tube out so he can breathe fully and stuff. 

 

I for my part was extremely lazy all day long and did very, very little. Our A/C did not enjoy us being at home opening and closing doors all day long (brisket smoking means doors are opened and closed a lot with the constant monitoring). 

[shaar]

50 minutes ago, Urgan said:

Surgery was on Thursday and he got home just a few days later. He was plenty strong enough to take the stress of the surgery and I'm sure he's glad to have that dang drain tube out so he can breathe fully and stuff. 

 

Jeez.  This always blows my mind.  SCIENCE AND MEDICINE in the year 2018.

[Urgan]

4 minutes ago, shaar said:

 

Jeez.  This always blows my mind.  SCIENCE AND MEDICINE in the year 2018.

 

And lower body strength 'cause that core ain't be much use when your rib cage all compromised. Woof. But yeah I was surprised to hear he was basically good to go from the crack of dawn Monday morning vs sometime today maybe??

[Jord]

Wow your hospital is fired for having very specific patient visiting hours. The modern way to be "patient centered" is to have much more lax visiting policies. And I'm talking even in the ICU. The strictest ICU policy i've seen in the two hospitals I visit (mine and Mr T) is that you can have only two people at a time and between like 7 am and 10 pm, no tiny windows.

 

I'm like ready to email their patient (insert adverb/noun/word here) department an angry letter on your behalf.

[Urgan]

2 minutes ago, Jord said:

Wow your hospital is fired for having very specific patient visiting hours. The modern way to be "patient centered" is to have much more lax visiting policies. And I'm talking even in the ICU. The strictest ICU policy i've seen in the two hospitals I visit (mine and Mr T) is that you can have only two people at a time and between like 7 am and 10 pm, no tiny windows.

 

I'm like ready to email their patient (insert adverb/noun/word here) department an angry letter on your behalf.

 

Yeah I'm down for trying to avoid emotional people in the patient's face every 10 minutes, but it definitely was what made the whole process 100000x more stressful for us, because Dad was always in relatively great shape, given the situation. Once he had a room it was a 12 hour window. 

 

Also, new life goal: never be hospitalized. I would either starve or crap myself to death due to the "food." 

 

Also the dietary advice is to avoid fats and fatty meat. They give him chicken pot pie and fettuccine alfredo and every meal has a roll and dessert. Looooooooooooooool. Granted it's not the time to be striving for a caloric deficit (because LBR it's probably happening regardless...especially when it looks too gross to attempt to eat so he just goes without overnight...), I'm just sayin' it might be heart healthier to model better food choices that will result in lower bodyweight for the truly ignorant? A small piece of chicken and the same vegetables would go a long way to making a less...vile? yes, vile food experience.

 

Maybe I'm losing sight of the bigger picture, but imagine how much easier it'd be to recover if you could take in nutrition sufficient to do so?

[Urgan]

Forgot to post this, so here I am at the last minute. Guess when I started making food choices considering sodium....

[Urgan]

September 2018 Goals

Dramatic reenactment of August

 

Oh what did August bring to us...hmm.....

 

New tires were acquired and with it some familial issues.

I PR'd my squat for the first time in basically 2 years. It's now at 205lbs for 5 sets.

I decided 120lbs and bloated wasn't a good plan and tracking sodium along with returning to 2300 calories is bringing that number under control. It took a bit, but my energy levels are stabilized again.

My gut doesn't like fruit, not even one piece + I found protein bars that I can eat without courting death. Not sure my gut appreciates the discovery as much as I do, though. More data needed.

Shark Week was ON TIME and STAYED ON TIME OMG.

I started "learning" Calculus, reviewed SQL, and experimented with Selenium.

That Guy is leaving forever.

My dad had open heart surgery, survived, and is back at home.

 

...so, some stuff happened in five weeks. Huh. Well, here's hoping for a less Eventful September, yes? So I guess this is the Safe Goals month time. I want to put a writing goal in, but LBR folks my down time is so tiny and my will to live at the end of the day is even tinier. I will need to clear some space to form a weekend habit of Not Watching Youtube All Day or something. It might happen after Calculus is migrated to book form or ends, whichever.

 

Recovery

2300 calories. I'm going to keep a steady 2300 ceiling because ATM this seems to be okay. 117lbs was sighted again last month and I want to make that a more regular thing.

0 : 0

Sodium. I'm just gonna log this for funsies. I don't know that I even want a target right now, I just want it as low as possible to also reach my macros.

0 : 0

Weight. Why not square this circle and post daily weight just to track how Things Are Progressing? Again, don't really have a goal weight, but <=118.2lbs would be nice.

0 : 0

 

Aikido

Jo. Do the Kata. Do it.

0/8

Other Techniques. This would be a good place to review what we work on in class. Is that too much to ask?

0/4

 

Adulting

Math. The Calculus continues. Eventually this is going to devolve into book choices to read between sets at the gym. Currently reading this book like the squirrel I am. Do I want to Phyisics, Calculus, Algebra, or Something Else? WHO KNOWS. 

0/4

 

Weekly Debriefs:

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

[Urgan]

9/4/2018

Passive-aggressively Dodge Co-opt Attempts Like Me

 

Recovery

2300 calories. 2279 : 2413

Sodium. 2627 : 2998

Weight. 118.4: 118.8

 

Aikido

Jo. 0/8

Other Techniques. 0/4

 

Adulting

Math. 0/4

 

Not much worth reporting, aside from an incident where a guy tried to make me his catspaw. He wanted me to go over and inquire status on an issue that is his priority and nobody else's, take the reaction this person would inevitably give to being prodded on the issue, and then report back to him. I told him the status in the ticket system ("Resolved"....not in QA Ready....) and who was working on the issue (he "didn't know that" apparently...), implying Go Do It Yourself. Also the system was down basically all day for the entire South-Central US because Microsoft Azure got set on fire (OMFG they trotted out climate change to blame for two lightning strikes....talk about desperate to pad a story that did not need it). 

 

ANYWAY. He did do it himself after I warned the person that they'd be jumped for a status update that they might not be prepared to give, since the SYSTEM IS DOWN and there's no moving any code anywhere when THE SYSTEM IS DOWN even if this person dropped everything and shifted to this item. 

 

So that was good. The person involved brought the issue up to boss and I let him know that this guy was trying to use me to get around him and have me goose the team into prioritizing his ticket. Guys I don't make the game plan. I don't harass the programmers. I don't advocate for somebody else's ideas of what should make it into the sprint. I just don't. I never will. That is not my lane, that is my boss's call and it annoys me that the attempt was made to put me in that position.

 

I has an anger.

[Urgan]

Correction. The tamale pie recipe I logged for dinner (and for lunch today...) was a victim of the F'd up macros issue of importing a recipe and then having the gall to make adjustments to it.

 

2300 calories. 2279 : 2413

Sodium. 2627 : 2998

 

becomes...

 

2300 calories. 2202 : 2260

Sodium. 1895 : 1534

 

WUT.

 

That's a bit of a difference of CUT IN HALF. Just 50% of prior entry. NBD.

[Urgan]

9/5/2018

Mathing better than MFP

 

Recovery

2300 calories. 2236 : 2304

Sodium. 1888 : 1873

Weight. 118.5: 118.6

 

Aikido

Jo. 0/8

Other Techniques. 0/4

 

Adulting

Math. 0/4  - 30%

 

Squat

45           10

105         5

125         3

145         3

160         1

180         3x2

 

Deadlifts

135         5

165         3

185         1

205         3x2

 

Technically deadlift work sets were a morning volume PR, but really just putting in the work. Wish I hadn't slept in for a half hour, would have made it easier to get all my sets in.

 

Discovering that my recipes are not be calculated even close to correctly has put a different complexion on things. It's going to be my new part time job correcting those things, I can tell. For all that, my weight is down and as you can see I'm not exactly starving myself. So that is a win-win. 

 

Aikido was two-hands-on-two kotegaeshi and kaitenage. That's right, we did TWO belt techniques in one day. Cut myself almost immediately with my own fingernail like a genius on a particularly sweaty night, as you do. I felt a little more on top of things here than I have in many other classes prior. 

 

Dad is doing okay, my parents are getting after each other because of the irritation of healing and the challenges that brings. He isn't trying particularly hard at the moment and he's full of inflammation so the number on the scale is freaking them both out and I'm like STAHP USE YOUR BRAINS. 

[shaar]

22 hours ago, Urgan said:

Well, here's hoping for a less Eventful September, yes?

 

Who do we pray to to make this happen???

 

 

 

 

21 hours ago, Urgan said:

 

So that was good. The person involved brought the issue up to boss and I let him know that this guy was trying to use me to get around him and have me goose the team into prioritizing his ticket. Guys I don't make the game plan. I don't harass the programmers. I don't advocate for somebody else's ideas of what should make it into the sprint. I just don't. I never will. That is not my lane, that is my boss's call and it annoys me that the attempt was made to put me in that position.

 

 

I......

 

I.

 

People.  Jesus frick.  Good to see the inter-office manipulation attempts are alive and well, and by good I mean that guy should go sit in an anthill. Like y'all don't have enough to worry about..............

[Urgan]

2 minutes ago, shaar said:

Who do we pray to to make this happen???

 

 

 

 

Everyone, just to cover our bases.

 

Except Satan.

 

I'm pretty sure he is a manager at my old job and that shithead ain't be helping nobody at the end of the day. ...or any other time, come to that.

 

3 minutes ago, shaar said:

I......

 

I.

 

People.  Jesus frick.  Good to see the inter-office manipulation attempts are alive and well, and by good I mean that guy should go sit in an anthill. Like y'all don't have enough to worry about..............

 

They're in every office, it seems. Luckily my boss's policy on it involves telling the man no from time to time. The most charitable interpretation of it is he's from the support side of the house and he's got different pressures on him than we do, but..... we know what happens when you just tell people "yes, we can do that!" no matter what the reality of the situation actually is. And it's our job to draw a line on what is acceptable to do and under what time constraints or else you get garbage product and disgruntled, demoralized IT. And those jokers tend to up and leave on you if they are unhappy long enough, you know.....

 

 

[Urgan]

And let me make it clear, by "in support" I don't mean answers calls and does the thing and takes the beatings all day long. I mean he lives in a meeting room and tells other people what to do.

[Urgan]

9/6/2018

Hoping this week stacks up

 

Recovery

2300 calories. 2268 : 2363

Sodium. 1888 : 1873

Weight. 118.3: 118.2

 

Aikido

Jo. 0/8

Other Techniques. 0/4

 

Adulting

Math. 0/4  - 38%

 

Thursday.....another one of these. I had the sniffs most of the day along with a schedule that included two hour long meetings, so I noped out of one meeting. Who doesn't love sniffing and sneezing in an enclosed room with 12-odd of your closest work acquaintances who don't understand your face malfunctions every so often??

 

Slept entirely too much after work, stupidly much. Dinner at 10PM much. Luckily I had already put the chili in the pot, so at least my husband could eat. What he COULDN'T do was taste it because his nose was also malfunctioning as of coming home, so we were a bucket of win today. At least my numbers look good....