Daynotes On A Budget, V6.0

More than a few years ago, my wife and I were living in our first two-bedroom apartment.  I got a call from my old Campus Computing superviosr who was in the process of upgrading the St. John's University student computing environment to a new VAX system.  He wanted to know if I wanted the old VAX 11/785 computer they had.  Yes, the VAX which was about the size of two side-slide file cabinets, needed an external cabinet about the size of a two-drawer file cabinet for the operating system disk and the storage disk, the big free-standing tape drive, and the nearly-as-big max-bus cabinet.  Yup, the one I helped to connect to the then-new TOMUS system that networked the library card-catalog systems between my university and the others in the MIAC conference that St. John's belonged to - all of which were small private colleges in the upper midwest, most in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and Illinois, at the time. And my wife said I had to say NO.  Talk about disapp...

 I am still here, trying to manage my time and energy.   Most nights I sleep in bed, now, though still on my back.  My weight restrictions are gradually loosening, I think I'm up to 25 pounds now, still a long way away from walking the dogs - between the two of them they're about 110 pounds, and when they decide they want to sniff something over that way, they can pull me - and I'm not small. Still doing cardiac rehab 3 times a week, from 2-3 pm.  I go in, get hooked up to a portable heart monitor, they take my blood pressure and blood sugars, then I spend 10 minutes walking.  I switch then to the recumbent bike, and do 20-25 minutes while they again take my blood pressure and remind me to hydrate.  Then weight training and stretching, final blood pressure and blood sugar checks, disconnect my monitor, and home I go to get back to work.  I take my lunch and an extra hour or so, with the approval of my supervisor, then back to work. ...

 I hope your Christmas celebrations were more fun than mine.   It's been a while, so let me sum up.  Back on 12/19/2025 after walking the dogs around the parking lot across the street, as I did nearly every evening the weather permitted, I came into the house and realized I was having a real problem catching my breath.  I put it down to the increased humidity and cold out there, combined with a seasonal respiratory issue - no infection, just a seasonal collection of mucous in my head that did not want to leave.   I tried laying down in bed, but it got worse.  So I told myself I'd sleep in my recliner.  I did get an hour or so of sleep, but things weren't getting better, despite the decongestant.  Then I thought "what if it's a problem with the furnace?"  I calmed right down.  I'd replaced the batteries in all of the smoke/carbon monoxide detectors just a month before, and standing outside didn't seem to make a difference. ...

        It was November of my Senior Year in High School. The band director, my favorite teacher in the school, tagged me and another drummer at the end of Concert Band. We had been heading out, but he managed to corral us for a moment.  We had no idea that, in a few months, the room we were standing in would be abandoned because a portion of the rear of the building - the building which had two upper floors that had been closed off due to the deterioration of the building that had been built in 1891, if I recall correctly. But it was there, the risers around us taking the upper level in the rear of the room about three feet above the lower area where we entered and the band director's podium stood next to the piano.   He had been asked by someone - he was vague as to whom - if he could find a couple of drummers to participate in a Veteran's Day observance out at the Veteran's Home. Well, we knew where it was - it had been the destination of every Memo...

 Back in the ... well, I started reading quite a few folks who ware no longer with us, and thinking "ya know, maybe I could do it."  And I kept it up for for  a few years, but things have...  Well, changed a lot. For starters, no longer being responsible for other folks computers has been both good and bad.  I still enjoy working on and with computers, but I do not have to be responsible for what happens when one of my fellow employees clicks on a link in an email that might seem harmless...  and never is.  I haven't clicked on a link in an email message in at least 20 years now.  At where I work now, there are regular "phishing" messages that show up and we're supposed to report them as phishing.  I usually do.  But most of the emails with links that come into my work address get deleted immediately.   Other than that, I'm doing well health-wise.  I'm not twenty, or even forty, but I'm feeling much better than I had....

I'm still here, kicking a little less, fighting some stupidity...  I guess. Back in 2008, I was hospitalized for over a week.  I had a significant amount of pain in my leg, went to see the doctor, and got an antibiotic shot.  And i was told to come back if my foot got "redder".  Two days later I was told to go to the ER.  They ran me through a bunch of tests, and a surgeon opened up my left shin and dug out a lot of infected tissue.   I guess I was lucky to keep the leg, the next 90 days were about as difficult as they've been lately.  i learned a great deal about managing my diabetes.  And I learned a little more about the world.  Which was, aside from my wife and kids, not too many people gave a great deal of crap about me.  Sure, I have friends, but when it comes to help solving problems, many of them land on me. Back in 2008, I came home with a stack of prescriptions.  A couple were for test strips, lancets, and a blood meter....