Never ring the bell!
86 yr old retired military on dialysis. Currently living in the Granbury, TX area.
See www.feeser.net for more info
If you are on dialysis, you need a dog. Next to a spouse, a dog IS your best friend.
Dickens has started to take rides in our golf cart. He sits high and proud and is very comfortable riding. People love to see him; it makes their day and, by extension, mine.
Dialysis seems much less burdsome as a result.
Try it.
I have a couple of hours of work to go, and our yard will be completely up to snuff. Thought I would share some “intimate ” pictures with captions as appropriate:
As promised, here is a try at an example using today’s topic. This blog is not for everyone. It is not about dialysis. It is a side interest of mine: AI and programming, and where the two stand today. This is but a humble example.
First thing is to go to Poe.com and sign in. It is easy to use your Google account to do so. You do not have to pay anything to use Poe for this example. It you get off in the ditch, start over. Once you are signed in, you will see a screen like the one below.
Click on the icon “App-Creator” and you will be off to the races. I entered the following prompt when asked (highlighted in blue below):
App-Creator will then generate the code necessary to produce an HTML rendering of your prompt. Copy this HTML code, and paste it into a text-based app and save it with an HTML extension. If you now open this file with your browser, for my code, you will be presented with the following two screens:
I’m going to place the actual code in the space below. It is in a folder named index.html. We’ll see what happens when it is clicked on: (It operated properly on my computer under preview). You are now off and running!!!!
Last weekend this month, two grandkids with their families plan on visiting us here in North Texas. This is a really big deal for my wife, and she is going all out, laying in supplies, cleaning, things mere mortals cannot fathom. Yesterday, we made a trip to CostCos and spent over $600, and we are not even close on menu items I’ve been informed. But you know this, after almost 63 years (anniversary April 28) I know in the end it will all get done and come together.
Meanwhile, tomorrow, I plan on posting specifics on the Poe code writing bot. Why, you ask? Because I can! It used to be I took pride in myself that daily. I looked fate in the eye and did something scary. Now, on dialysis, I’m supposed to behave and be subservient to the hundred-pound gorilla on our backs. Screw it. That’s no fun. We can still live life to the fullest. Let’s get it on!!!
We have been steadily working in the yard regardless of the 96 F temperature yesterday and mid-80s today. We are to the point that after Wednesday, when the holly and boxwood get planted, we will be in a maintaining mode from here on in.
The video I posted here yesterday has received 52 views as of 1440 5/14 and a thumbs up. Seems that other people are interested in what we are up to.
The AI engine that I have used and mentioned in this blog has released a bot named App-Creator. It supports plain English input with resulting HTML code implementing the input. You tell it what you want done, and it does it. That simple. Gets a little more complicated from here. You have to take the resultant HTML code and make it useful. You might upload the code to a hosted web page, and cite the URL for this page to make it useful. I’m working on an App to calculate IRS quarterly advance tax payments and will have it up in a couple of days as an example for my readers.
Saturday, I shot the video below of most of the action that’s been going on in our yard—plant-wise. It has received a reasonable amount of hits already on YouTube, suggesting this is a popular subject. It is meant largely to bring my friends, relatives, and colleagues up to date on my latest efforts in the yard/flower beds.
Yes, I’m 86 and still at it. Today, I unpacked and spread 19 bags of mulch/manure weighing about 40 lbs each AFTER installing borders around four trees and what is to become our potato bed. Am I tired and a little sore. You betcha Red Rider, but I did it and so can you. In your face, dialysis!
Sunday’s WSJ’s Exchange Section had an article by Jason Zweig titled ” What to Do Now That Tariff’s have Decimated Your 401 (k).” He wrote in part, “Intense uncertainty automatically triggers fear and stress in the human brain, infusing our bodies with the ancient fight-or-flight response that is essential to survival. Fear fixates our attention on the negative, makes us acutely sensitive to social signals, impedes our working memory and impairs our ability to think flexibly.
An event unprecedented in most investors’ lifetimes, like Trump’s barrage of tariffs, intensifies our fear and stress.”
If nothing else, the Military and certainly combat require clear thinking without great latitude for mistakes. We are taught and must quickly learn to make life-dependent decisions quickly, with a paucity of definitive information. Such thinking prepares those with a military background to face life’s many decision points with a much different mindset and emotional preparedness.
This applies to me personally in view of what is presently taking place in the stock market and in my approach to dialysis.
Regarding the market, yes, we’re down, but I have faith in the market and its history and instead of crying in my root beer (I don’t imbibe), I’m buying in the down market. Regarding dialysis, I recognize there are and will be ups and downs, people and equipment will malfunction, but in the end, regardless of all the great support we have, when crunch time comes, and it will, it is up to us, the patients, to step up.
Lab results are back already, and as expected, there were no surprises.
My lawn crew arrived on time, and in addition to the usual mowing and trimming, I tasted them with planting 3 oaks, 2 myrtle, 2 bamboo , 3 apple, and 2 peach trees as well as moving a pile of bricks to the other side of the single garage. We’re moving the bricks to clear the way for up to 10 grow-sacks for potatoes.
Back in the day, whenever I assembled gobs of PCs, they required a sound card and Soundblaster was THE brand. I thought I’d try a sound dongle to fix the lack of sound on my MINI PC. Amazon had a USB-A portable Soundblaster dongle for less than $20 bucks, so I ordered one. It arrived Tuesday and was plug and play, and WORKED-YEA!!. So I have switched back to my minnPC and am a happy camper.
Life continues to be good. I’m on evening static fill, then off to take our Golden on his evening golf cart ride, then a show on TV, then to bed to do it all over again.
I was sitting on our back patio, being thankful for my day, even though I had dialysis labs (no problems). I thought back to some of the situations I’ve encountered in life and decided that being on dialysis isn’t all that bad.
Let me explain a little bit. When I was sent to Vietnam by the US Navy as a third tour there, initially, I was to be an electronics advisor mainly out of Nah Bay, which is Nha Trang Bay. As things work in the Navy, this lasted for about three weeks, and a more pressing need developed – that of updating the Mk 19 Mod 0 Grenade Machine Guns to the new Mk 19 Mod 1 configuration. This update was found to be beyond the capability of Vietnamese boat crews, so a Mobile Ordnance Team was formed, and I was in charge. The team consisted of myself, a lieutenant at the time, a Master Chief Gunner’s Mate, a Chief Gunner, and two civilian tech reps from Navy Ordance Station Louisville, KY. Get this: we were in charge of all the ordance on some 1250 Brown Water Navy craft that had been turned over to the Vietnamese Navy. To further complicate matters, no one on the US side had firm data on where said craft were located.
This tracking required me and my team to travel extensively in III-and IV-Corps by whatever means we could beg, borrow, or steal to accomplish our mission. Keep in mind that conflicts were going on in which we were involved as THE ordinance Team.
And that, my friends, leads me to the conclusion that dialysis is not all that bad; at least no one is shooting at you, have clean sheets and a bed at night, and most of the time have digestible food to eat. What’s not to like?
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