Blood work

I’ve never been one for getting annual physicals but they are covered by Medicare and when they called me to schedule mine, I figured why not. In preparation for the physical I’m getting some blood work done. They recommended a PSA test, even though they aren’t a particularly reliable indicator of prostate cancer. Cholesterol of course. I suggested a B12 test since I’m mostly vegan and probably don’t get a lot of B12 in the foods I eat. I thought it was amusing that the reason given on the order is:
Persistent vegetative state.

Gruntled and shevelled

Linguistic humor, How I met my wife

Source: Jack Winter. 1994. How I met my wife. New Yorker, July 25.
It had been a rough day, so when I walked into the party I was very chalant, despite my efforts to appear gruntled and consolate.
I was furling my wieldy umbrella for the coat check when I saw her standing alone in a corner. She was a descript person, a woman in a state of total array. Her hair was kempt, her clothing shevelled, [or should that be hevelled?—BES] and she moved in a gainly way.

I wanted desperately to meet her, but I knew I’d have to make bones about it, since I was travelling cognito. Beknownst to me, the hostess, whom I could see both hide and hair of, was very proper, so it would be skin off my nose if anything bad happened. And even though I had only swerving loyalty to her, my manners couldn’t be peccable. Only toward and heard-of behavior would do.

Fortunately, the embarrassment that my maculate appearance might cause was evitable. There were two ways about it, but the chances that someone as flappable as I would be ept enough to become persona grata or a sung hero were slim. I was, after all, something to sneeze at, someone you could easily hold a candle to, someone who usually aroused bridled passion.

So I decided not to risk it. But then, all at once, for some apparent reason, she looked in my direction and smiled in a way that I could make heads or tails of.

I was plussed. It was concerting to see that she was communicado, and it nerved me that she was interested in a pareil like me, sight seen. Normally, I had a domitable spirit, but, being corrigible, I felt capacitated—as if there were something I was great shakes at—and forgot that I had succeeded in situations like this only a told number of times. So, after a terminable delay, I acted with mitigated gall and made my way through the ruly crowd with strong givings.

Nevertheless, since this was all new hat to me and I had no time to prepare a promptu speech, I was petuous. Wanting to make only called-for remarks, I started talking about the hors d’oeuvres, trying to abuse her of the notion that I was sipid, and perhaps even bunk a few myths about myself.

She responded well, and I was mayed that she considered me a savory character who was up to some good. She told me who she was. “What a perfect nomer,” I said, advertently. The conversation became more and more choate, and we spoke at length to much avail. But I was defatigable, so I had to leave at a godly hour. I asked if she wanted to come with me. To my delight, she was committal. We left the party together and have been together ever since. I have given her my love, and she has requited it.

Source

Will Apple ever sell me another laptop? Still no.

In 2013 I upgraded from my laptop to a Mac mini when I could no longer develop apps on my laptop. I wanted to test whether my apps would run on the new M1 chip (they do) and it was taking forever to compile and run on the old setup so it was time to upgrade again. I wrote a post at that time with reasons to go with a Mini instead of a laptop and the underlying rationale hasn’t changed since then. The price difference is much less now, $699 for my base model Mac Mini with an M1 chip vs $999 for a laptop but I still opted for the Mini. My old monitors either don’t have the resolution for the Mini or didn’t work at all so I had to spend $373 for a new monitor and a few cables so my total outlay was a little over $1,110.

Mac Mini Desktop

Rather than doing a migration from the old computer with all of the old files from multiple migrations, I opted for a fresh start. The only program that doesn’t work on the new setup is Acorn.(Fixed with Version 7) Firefox works but often freezes after waking. When I first got the computer it sometimes wouldn’t recognize the keyboard, but I think they must have fixed that problem with an update since it hasn’t happened for quite a while now. Otherwise, no issues.

I connected the two Minis with a 6″ Cat 5 cable so I can open files on the old computer and work on them on the new one. I connect in the Finder with Go->Connect to Server->Browse. It works fine although Pages wants to autosave and the old computer doesn’t support whatever it wants to do so I have to keep telling it that there really isn’t another program that has the same document open.

I had an old Samsung TV that I now use for the old Mini. It is also connected to my big monitor. I still have most of my email on the old computer, which was a big reason to have two monitors, so I haven’t missed having the new Mini connected to just the big monitor. It’s an LG 27″ 4K monitor. The text is crisp and colors fine.

You might notice the joystick next to the monitor. The M1 Mini is fast enough to run X-Plane and it is completely silent when running. That is one big plus for the M1; it has fans but I have never heard them. It also has an SSD instead of a spinning HD so I never hear the HD whine. It also opens Xcode and my project in seconds rather than multiple minutes that the old Mini requires. Waking from sleep and rebooting are also significantly quicker—orders of magnitude quicker. When Apple says this Mac is fast, they really mean it.

When I bought my Logitech keyboard I got one that could also connect to my iPad. I never used it for that but the ability to connect to three devices with a key press makes it handy for switching back and forth between the two computers. I frequently forget which computer I am connected to but so far haven’t done any damage to my files.

I was considering getting a mouse that would switch back and forth, but using two isn’t an issue and I don’t see the need to spend $100 on a new one.

Here’s hoping this setup will last me another eight years.