Hello, World! I hope to use this little corner of the internet to document my adventures in coding, cooking, home repair, healing, health, patient care and life. With that done I’m exhausted.

Adventures in Ice Management

Why am I so tired? What did I do today? For starters I spread salt and sand on my driveway and on the sidewalk in front of my house. 4 inches of snow fell overnight out here in metro-Boston. I’ve got a home salt spreaders but after 5 winters it’s on its last legs. I first noticed that its bolts had rusted as I filled it alternatively with sand and salt. Then I struggled to push it around only for it to leave a narrow ribbon of salt and sand. So much for spreading. Only after I had distributed all of the salt and sand emptying the hopper did I notice that the spreading mechanism had broken and that the wheel that ran it had frozen in place. I’ll look at that more closely another day. You’d think that such spreaders would have more corrosion resistance but that likely costs more than folks like me are willing to pay. So I had to spread out all of those ribbons with a broom myself. Not the hardest task in the world. I actually found the sweeping meditative and relaxing. But it was chilly.

Home Improvement Wins and Setbacks

My driveway taken care of I headed to Home Depot where I bought a replacement dimmer as well as the tools needed to replace the current one. Retailers no longer sell most incandescent bulbs in the USA. The old dimmer can’t handle the new, low wattage, LED bulbs which flicker in a way that my wife finds maddening.

My first solution involved changing the LED 60W replacements with 40W incandescent bulbs that they still sell. Those specilized bulbs were designed to go in appliances like fridges and stoves. That change solved the flicker problem but also reduced the light by maybe a third. I think I can do better with a new dimmer designed for LED bulbs. Off to Home Depot for me.

My purchase at HD went uneventfully but when I got home I realized that the grey dimmer I had purchased didn’t match the white plate. 2nd act of the day? Returned to Home Depot to swap out the dimmer a bought for a white one. This would be my first return at Home Depot and I worried about lines and hassle by customer service but shouldn’t have. I experienced neither. The exchange was easy as pie.

Some Vegetarian Meal Prep for this Reducetarian

Everything for that project lined up, I turned my attention to cooking. I roasted some potatoes as well as some eggplants, the latter destined for baba ganoush. At the same time I also simmered the garbonzo beans I had soaked overnight for some scratch hummus. Everything came out delish but the clean up took a lot out of me (and I don’t have a lot in me to begin with.)

Setting up the Blog

Still, I’ve been eager to set up a blog so I spent the last couple of hours getting this bare bones blog up and running using Jekyll and hosted for free on GitHub using Github Pages. More details and instructions on using Jekyll and GitHub Pages together can be found here. Not much to show for my efforts but still – spoons gone, brain fried.

Updates: Health and Pacing

UPDATE: Did about 15 minutes of time on the exercise bike followed by some stretching and felt better. More about exercise later.

UPDATE 2: Woke up this morning (the morning after writing the above post) with a sore throat. I’ve had mild systemic symptoms – sinusitis, myalgias, pharyngitis (sore throat), fatigue, cold intolerance – for about 5 days now and the sore throat is a reminder that I’m still likely fighting something off or still tired from the fight. Fatigue can linger long after other symptoms. So, I’ll pace myself and stay hydrated.

Next Steps for the Blog and Beyond

  1. Find a better theme and make this site look a little better.
  2. Remove all of the default content that comes automatically with a new Jekyll app.
  3. Add Google analytics. Will anyone find anything interesting here? I’m gonna find out.
  4. Consider adding comments. Not likely worth the effort to add and monitor if no one reads this anyway. Readers can always email me if they really want to let me know something.
  5. Add a post about what I’m up to and working on.
  6. Get cracking.
  7. Lather, rinse and return to step 5.