27 June 2010
Oh, and one more thing
One thing I forgot to mention in that last post was the James Taylor/Carole King concert. I've been a huge fan of James Taylor since the mid-1970s, but I had never seen him in concert. The last time he was in central OH, I had to teach the night he was here. When I heard he was coming to town again, I really wanted to finally see him. I figured this may be about my last time, 'cuz face it, neither of us is getting any younger (although for 62, his voice was in unbelievable form, but I'm getting ahead of myself). A couple of weeks before the concert, I asked Sherry if she wanted to go and we got a couple of the less expensive tickets in the upper level of Value City Arena. My overall impressions were that it may have been one of the best 2 or 3 concerts I've ever been to. Carole admitted she was suffering from a cold and her voice was a little "off" at times, but then she never had the greatest voice and she is 68. I thought she sounded better in person than on the Troubadour Reunion CD that I heard over at Beau and Cyndy's the week before. There were a couple of songs I hadn't heard before, I really enjoyed both of the duets with just guitar, but the biggest applause of the evening were for the fantastic performance of Fire and Rain. Just a great evening.
15 June 2010
Random Thoughts: Smokey, stress, depression, weather
I don't know if anyone out there actually reads this. I really started doing this mostly for myself, but I have told a few people about it. If there is still anyone out there, you've no doubt noticed that I haven't been posting much lately (except my occasional flight log). There a a few reasons for that and I'll touch on most of them in this post. I've actually been somewhat more active on Facebook and have even briefly considered shutting this down, but for the time being I think I will leave the blog up. That said, I'm still likely to be more active on Twitter (I'll reach my 1000th tweet this week, I think) and Facebook, but I hope to get back to writing here more often.
First off, on Monday, 26 Apr, my 19-year-old cat, Smokey, passed away. He had been struggling and I actually thought we were going to have to put him down in Feb., but he hung in there until the end of Apr. Unfortunately, that was a day that I had to teach, so I probably had the worst class I've ever taught that evening. This was probably even more difficult for me than when Ellie passed away. I really didn't have a lot of use for cats when Smokey wandered into my life, but he adopted me and for the next 16 years, he was my cat.
One of the other reasons that I haven't posted much has to do with stress in my life. In fact, moreso than I really realized until about the last week. In Jan, my friend Lenny asked me to write some new material for his malware analysis class for SANS. It was something I really wanted to do, but I had a lot of trouble concentrating on it and really didn't get quite as much written as I would have liked, though Lenny seems quite happy with my material. Couple that with a pretty short deadline (only two weeks because someone else had originally agreed to do that part but had to back out at nearly the last minute) and the SANS class that I mentored from Feb-Apr and TA-ing at SANS 2010 in Orlando, and some stuff that I really needed to get done at work, oh, and Erin had a rough quarter, too, and preparing to sit for the GSE exam, and I was having trouble concentrating on anything or getting anything accomplished. In fact, I still owe Lenny an appendix from Feb, that I hope to write this month yet. Well, the class I was mentoring ended the first weekend in May. I passed the GSEC certification exam in Mar (with a 93, I think), and the GSE written 2 weeks ago (with a 98.67% that should have been 100%). All of those have helped. Also, for the last week or so, I've been making a concerted effort to simplify and only work on one thing at a time and as a result, I've had the two most productive weeks at work in over a year. Oh, and on Monday, we should close on our refinancing on the house which will lower our interest rate and allow us to roll half the credit cards into it. This should result in us being completely debt-free in 7-10 years. The take-away from that is, I need to learn how to remove some of the stress in my life. I think that has also resulted in my weight remaining stagnant (202±2) rather than getting down where I expected it to be by now (about 195).
Another topic I wanted to touch on, as listed in the title of this post, is depression. Until I lived with it, I didn't really understand mental illness. A week or so ago, someone I know ran out of their medication and the mail order refill didn't show up on time. So, this person is off of their meds for a few days and someone who is supposed to be close to them says this person should "man up and get over it". Would you say that to someone with cancer? kidney failure? Mental illness is no less a "real" illness, it results from a real chemical imbalance in the brain. Clinical depression isn't just the "feeling down" that we've all experienced from time to time and telling someone to "get over it", really pissed me off. To date, I've refrained from telling this other person what I really think of that statement, but that may not last.
The weather this month has been pretty ridiculous. Lots of thunderstorms and heat, but I haven't been able to get in the pool yet even though I've had it open for a week. Sigh... Another severe thunderstorm watch just kicked in and the Reds game is in a rain delay. More again (relatively) soon.
First off, on Monday, 26 Apr, my 19-year-old cat, Smokey, passed away. He had been struggling and I actually thought we were going to have to put him down in Feb., but he hung in there until the end of Apr. Unfortunately, that was a day that I had to teach, so I probably had the worst class I've ever taught that evening. This was probably even more difficult for me than when Ellie passed away. I really didn't have a lot of use for cats when Smokey wandered into my life, but he adopted me and for the next 16 years, he was my cat.
One of the other reasons that I haven't posted much has to do with stress in my life. In fact, moreso than I really realized until about the last week. In Jan, my friend Lenny asked me to write some new material for his malware analysis class for SANS. It was something I really wanted to do, but I had a lot of trouble concentrating on it and really didn't get quite as much written as I would have liked, though Lenny seems quite happy with my material. Couple that with a pretty short deadline (only two weeks because someone else had originally agreed to do that part but had to back out at nearly the last minute) and the SANS class that I mentored from Feb-Apr and TA-ing at SANS 2010 in Orlando, and some stuff that I really needed to get done at work, oh, and Erin had a rough quarter, too, and preparing to sit for the GSE exam, and I was having trouble concentrating on anything or getting anything accomplished. In fact, I still owe Lenny an appendix from Feb, that I hope to write this month yet. Well, the class I was mentoring ended the first weekend in May. I passed the GSEC certification exam in Mar (with a 93, I think), and the GSE written 2 weeks ago (with a 98.67% that should have been 100%). All of those have helped. Also, for the last week or so, I've been making a concerted effort to simplify and only work on one thing at a time and as a result, I've had the two most productive weeks at work in over a year. Oh, and on Monday, we should close on our refinancing on the house which will lower our interest rate and allow us to roll half the credit cards into it. This should result in us being completely debt-free in 7-10 years. The take-away from that is, I need to learn how to remove some of the stress in my life. I think that has also resulted in my weight remaining stagnant (202±2) rather than getting down where I expected it to be by now (about 195).
Another topic I wanted to touch on, as listed in the title of this post, is depression. Until I lived with it, I didn't really understand mental illness. A week or so ago, someone I know ran out of their medication and the mail order refill didn't show up on time. So, this person is off of their meds for a few days and someone who is supposed to be close to them says this person should "man up and get over it". Would you say that to someone with cancer? kidney failure? Mental illness is no less a "real" illness, it results from a real chemical imbalance in the brain. Clinical depression isn't just the "feeling down" that we've all experienced from time to time and telling someone to "get over it", really pissed me off. To date, I've refrained from telling this other person what I really think of that statement, but that may not last.
The weather this month has been pretty ridiculous. Lots of thunderstorms and heat, but I haven't been able to get in the pool yet even though I've had it open for a week. Sigh... Another severe thunderstorm watch just kicked in and the Reds game is in a rain delay. More again (relatively) soon.
10 June 2010
Flight Log 2010-06-10
Another beautiful evening for flying. This time it was an opportunity to take my sister, brother-in-law, 2 nephews, and 2 nieces flying. The first time in a private plane for all the kids. Temp 27°C, winds 310@06, altimeter 29.98, and clear at the start, calm and 22°C by the time I got back to KVTA. I also got night current while I was at it (although the cockpit lights in 626 suck). So, a total of 7 take-offs and landings. Now, I have my medical in 2 weeks and need to schedule my flight review (and if I can get some approaches in with a safety pilot or instructor, I'd like to get instrument current again, too).
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