Learning to use an iPod

I recently bought a reconditioned laptop that I now use to access the 'Net via broadband wireless. It's so nice to have a far more powerful computer than the old one I used to have, a 10 year old Gateway desktop that ran on a slow dial-up connection on Windows 98. A few years ago, my family very kindly gifted me with a 512 MB iPod Shuffle, 1st generation. Unfortunately, it never worked with the old computer, nor the one at work which is new and powerful, because at work, we would have to go through our network administrator to be able to download iTunes and they highly discourage any downloading because on our old computers, we frequently got viruses from so doing, and even on these newer ones, we still get the occasional bug/virus that creeps into the system somehow, but certainly not from downloading anything. So I've had this useless iPod sitting around in its box for quite a few years now, but I can now use it on the new computer, which came equipped with iTunes already loaded, so I didn't have to do a thing but go ahead and try to learn this new technology. It's taken me a few weeks, but I think I am finally getting the hang of doing stuff like creating playlists and uploading them to my iPod. It's so much better than dragging around bags of CD's and a portable CD player like I used to. Now, I just put some music on the iPod and I'm good to go! The great thing about the Shuffle is that it comes with a lanyard that you can use to wear your iPod, which comes in mighty handy at work. It makes my music easily portable as I walk around the office doing work, so I can listen to music wherever I go. I really love this technology of small digital music players like iPods and such. I can put hours of good music on my iPod and listen away as I work instead of being tied to my computer via headphones, because I do have a CD player in my computer, but that often meant that I had to be at my desk to listen to music. Now I don't have to do that anymore. I've cut the cord and I can freely move around with my iPod around my neck and listening to music with my nice Maxell digital earphones. I hate earbuds because my ears are so small that it hurts to shove those things into my ears, so I use conventional earphones that are far easier to use, albeit larger than tiny earbuds, but still.....it IS really nice to have portable music with me all day at work. I just wish I could put music on my iPod at work if I tire of what's on there before I get home, but oh, well, that's not possible, so I guess I have to settle for what I have on my iPod when I leave the house in the morning.

Moving on

I am trying to decide what to do about working out now that the place I was going has gone out of business. I'm assuming that its demise is permanent and that I won't see my trainer again and that he's probably going to move on with his life and do other things, leaving those of us who were working with him to find other options as to what to do about staying in shape. I've been checking out several local facilities, from the Kent State Wellness and Recreation Center to the Ravenna Athlectic Center, or the RAC, to a few other local facilities. What I feel like I need is a personal trainer, someone who I can work with and who can help me to get and stay fit despite some slight physical limitations and my age. I need to be able to do all of this and not do anything that will cause me any injuries, so I need someone who knows how to work with middle aged folks like me who have arthritic joints, previous injuries and other limitations but who still want to stay fit. So I need someone who knows what they are doing and who can show me how to maximize what I can do to get back into something resembling good shape as well as how to lose some weight that I seem to have put on in recent days that I very much want to lose.

I know that one of the things I need to do is to drink far more water than I do this time of year. I tend to go for hot drinks like coffee, tea, hot chocoloate, hot cider, etc. instead of drinking good old fashioned water. I bought us a Brita pitcher for work so we have filtered water available at the office, meaning I don't need to buy bottled water. It's available in the staff kitchen in the fridge, and I brought a large plastic tumbler from home to keep at my desk to fill with water, but I never do so. Given my lengthy history of kidney stones, I could well benefit from drinking more water and it does aid in weight loss as well. I just need to discipline myself to do so and to remind myself of just how painful each and every one of those kidney stone attacks have been. It's a steep price I pay for not drinking enough water, so I need to get with the program and just start drinking water each and every day. I drink a lot when I work out, but since I'm not working out anymore - at least not until I find a new gym - I'm not drinking much, if any, water at all, except to take my meds and my vitamins each day. Once I get back into the workout habit and start regularly going to a gym, I know my water drinking habit will come back, but for now, I'm not getting nearly enough as it is and I definitely need to do something about that.

So for now, I am looking for ways to move on after the loss of my trainer and the gym I was going to these past few years. Yes, it's rough to consider starting over with a new trainer, a new gym and new routines - IF I can motivate myself during these colder months of the year when I get into a sort of cocoon mode - but I want to stay fit and healthy through these middle years of my life and what better way to do so than to build on what I have accomplished under Jason's tutelage. I sure don't want to lose what I've gained thus far, and if I can't motivate myself to go to a gym, well, I do have some weights and bands at home that I can use if I don't want to leave the house to go workout, if I can get myself to do it alone at home instead of wanting to curl up on the sofa and sleep like I do most days when I get home from work. It remains to be seen how I am going to deal with all of this, but right now, I don't want to have to go so long without working out that I'm going to have to start all over again rebuilding what I spent so long gaining in the first place. If I'm going to get back to the workout routine, it's going to have to be sooner rather than later, because the longer I wait, the tougher it's going to be to get back into it at all.

Farewell, Breakaway

For the past three years, I've been fortunate enough to have a personal trainer who, up until recently, was also my physical therapist. We worked out in the PT office in the evenings but in 2007 we moved to a new facility south of here, in Brimfield, a large gym-like place with an exercise floor and basketball and baseball training areas. I admit, at first, I didn't much like it and missed the intimacy of the PT office, but in time, it sort of grew on me and I began to actually sort of like the place. Its main drawbacks were that it was fairly cold in the wintertime, as the trainers kept the heat back to around 50 degrees to save on the heat bill, and that it wasn't air conditioned in the summer, and it could get bakingly hot in there with the building surrounded by an asphalt parking lot. There was a large garage door like thing located near the exercise floor that could be opened to let air in on hot summer days, so that at least gave it some much needed ventilation on hot summer days. So all in all, it was bearable, if not very warm and cool at times. But sadly, Breakaway Sports Training, where I have worked out with my trainer since it opened in November of 2007, has gone out of business due to the withdrawal of two of the four partners who were running it. So now I have nowhere to work out. My trainer was supposed to find us a new place to go, possibly taking us back to the PT office where we began, but I haven't heard a thing and I half suspect that he's going to take a break from working with us for a while and spend some time with his family instead, who have hardly seen him in three years. He was busy these recent years doing undergraduate and graduate work toward a career change to a high school science teacher and he has succeeded in so doing, as he was able to secure a job teaching in a local school system. Between that and building up the sports training business, he really hasn't seen much of his family recently, so I suspect the long silence is due to his wanting some down time with his family, and I suppose I can't blame him, but it leaves me feeling very much at a loss as to what to do now. I'm not terribly disciplined about doing exercise on my own and having a trainer to work with, especially one who's known me this long and who knows my physical limitations, has been a godsend. I rather suspect that I won't hear anything before the end of the year, as Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas will soon be upon us. so either I am going to have to tough it out and find ways on my own to workout or just wait patiently for word as to what, if anything, is going to happen now. Frankly, I won't be surprised if I never hear anything at all and if my trainer calls it quits for now to spend time with his family. I'll just feel very sad if our days of working out with him are over, because it's been a good three year run getting stronger and feeling better about myself. I'm going to miss it.

Changes big and small

This has been a year of many changes, both large and small. Sometimes I feel a tad overwhelmed by it all and feel at a loss to try to digest it all and make some sense of it. There are changes at work, changes at home, changes in my life, changes in the nation, changes in the world, and even, after 13 long years of having the same e-mail address, that's even about to change as I at long last make the anticipated switch to broadband since I recently bought a reconditioned laptop computer to replace the old dinosaur desktop I've had for going on 10 years now. Even the gym where I have worked out is closing so that's yet another change that I must digest as well. Two of the four business partners who were running it wanted out and the remaining two didn't want to manage it on their own, so tonight marks its final night in business and I don't know what lies around the corner for what's going to happen next, but my trainer (and now former physical therapist, since he quit the PT business to become a high school science teacher) assures me that we'll still work out, but he's not sure where where yet. Chances are pretty good that we'll be back at the old PT facility where he used to work and where we used to workout before he and the other partners started the gym where we eventually moved in November of 2007. So if we're back at the PT facility again, well, at least it will be old and familiar turf, since I've gone there far too frequently in recent years for injury rehab, so I know the place too well and it's also well equipped with fitness equipment so that's one advantage of returning there. Another one is that it's a mere few blocks from my home at my doctor office building in downtown Kent, within easy walking distance of home. So that makes it attractive for me to be so close to where I live.

Other changes that I've been trying to deal with are the fact that at work, staff vacancies are no longer being filled due to state funding cuts, so we just lost a staff member who was transferred to a short staffed branch and who we cannot replace. Another is out on what appears to be a very lengthy medical leave and who probably will not be able to return anytime soon. We have other staffers who have medical problems that need attention as well and several awaiting surgeries, so.....it's going to be one of those school years where we have to make due with skeleton staff and those of us left are going to have to work harder and do more with less time with which to get it all done. Can you say, STRESS? I've had to prioritize work and let go those tasks which I think don't need attention at the immediate moment in favor of those I feel do require more time and attention and which are more time sensitive than others. I take work home at night that can be done on my home computer and stored on a jump drive so that I can get more done in the office. To say I am tired is an understatement. I am exhausted, and sadly, I suspect that vacation requests will be denied due to our staffing situation and that at best, we may be allowed a day off here, a day off there, but no more vacations of any significant length. I suspect that even asking for a week off, particularly during high demand seasons like the holidays or summer, may become a thing of the past as well. I'm not even so sure that my usual summer vacations will be allowed or that I will be permitted to have even a week off during Christmas. I suspect that this situation will become the permanent "new normal", as we will probably never again experiece the kind of state funding we once had in the roarin' 90's. Those days are over forever, I have a feeling.

And of course, there's always the so-called "health care reform" situation still simmering and causing rampant controversy, but that's a rant for another time. Suffiice it to say that even thinking about the prospect of a desperately watered down bill, which is probably what we'll get when all is said and done, adds to my already high stress levels at the moment. I'm tired of putting off necessary health care because, even with insurance, I cannot afford it because of co-pays and deductibles that any health care bill coming out of Washington will not address. That has me seeing red, and I know I am not alone in feeling this way, but then, our voices no longer get heard anyway. It's the lobbyists and big corporations who help re-elect candidates who ultimately get their way and who buy policy with their megabucks. We are no longer a nation OF THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE and FOR THE PEOPLE, but then you may call me a "socialist" for thinking that it ought rightly to be a nation where THE PEOPLE come first, not big money, corporations or lobbyists. I'll happily take that title of "socialist", thank you!

The simmering summer of discontent

This summer, as the health care reform debate raged through town hall meetings with Congressmen and women during their August break, it seems as if the Democrats were asleep at the wheel. They allowed massive "swiftboating" lies to be generated about health care reform, like "death panels" and other outrageous and sensational accusations in order to generate enough fear mongering to sink any and all efforts at real and meaningful health care reform. What sickens me is that they almost got away with it because Democrats sat on their hands and did nothing and let the right wing take the offensive in the debate while doing absolutely nothing to counter what the right was doing. This kind of delayed response to attacks is what eventually sank the Kerry candidacy for President in 2004 and it shocks and amazes me that the Democrats didn't learn the lessons from that debacle. Now President Obama has been forced to play defense with his health care reform plan, but it may be too little, too late, because the Republicans have swiftboated health care reform so handily that they have now easily gained the upper hand to where the whole effort may well be doomed for good. Had the Democrats gone on the offensive when the attacks began instead of remaining silent until it became apparent that they were going to have to do some serious defensive work, they might have succeeded with real health care reform, but now, if we get anything at all, it will be a severely watered down plan that will do little to help people like me who have insurance but have such high deductibles that I end up paying for all of my own medical expenses out-of-pocket. I must say that I am extremely disappointed in the Democrats delayed response to the right wing attacks that went on all summer. Obama needs to abandon his attempts to make nice with the right wingnuts and instead, go on an all out offensive to put them in their place once and for all as a bunch of loonies bent on some bizarre strategy to create a fascist regime. If health care is going to happen at all - and I doubt that it will, because every President for the past 100 years has tried and failed - it's probably not going to be much of anything that will help anyone, because the problems that are causing costs to spiral out of control are many: a rampant and unchecked obesity epidemic, caused by overconsumption of overprocessed foods, cities that have gutted their downtowns and have sent all of their busineses to their outer fringes, forcing people to drive everywhere instead of walk, a decided lack of health and nutritional education in schools, a sharp reduction in physical education classes in America's schools, cities that are no longer pedestrian friendly and force people to use their cars more and more to get places, pop machines in our schools, there because schools face sharp reductions in state and federal funding and must make up that money somehow, so pop companies put machines in schools in trade for tons of money to subsidize everything from text books to sports....the list goes on and on. It's a multi-pronged problem that is going to need more than just health care specialists to solve. It's going to take an alliance of urban planners, educators, nutritionists, restaurant owners (who serve far too large portions), doctors, nurses, transportation specialists and more, to get together to figure out how to fix the multitude of problems contributing to America's poor health and spiraling medical costs. The mistake that the Obama administration is making is in not seeing the bigger picture of why things have gotten out of hand. The fact is, America is fat, overfed and does not get enough exercise, and there are a number of contributing factors to this that need to be addressed if we are going to get this country's health care costs under control. Nothing short of an all out war on our way of life is going to fix things once and for all. And that's not going to be at all easy for people to accept. It's going to take a major cultural shift in the way we think to get things turned around, but that's probably too big an order to ask for. So I guess we'll have to settle for whatever piecemeal reforms the government will allow, and I'm not optimistic that it will be near enough to fix all of the broken pieces in the puzzle.

Remembering 9-11

Today marks the eighth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center towers in New York, the Pentagon in Washington and the hijacked airliner that crashed in Shanksville, PA, probably en route to another attack on Washington. I remember that day in too vivid detail as an almost surreal day. It started out like any other late summer morning - clear, crisp blue sky, a bit on the coolish side with the promise of brilliant afternoon warmth, a bittersweet reminder of the waning of summer and the onset of autumn and its cooler temperatures. I was sitting at my computer terminal at work shortly before 9 a.m. doing some work while listening to a CD of Irish music, in particular the tune "Raglan Road", when my boss came up to me and signaled for me to remove my headphones so he could speak to me. Doing so, he told me that his wife had just called from home and that she said that she saw on the news that an airplane had hit the World Trade Center, and could I get on the Internet to see what's going on? Naturally, I figured it was just a freak accident, so I attempted to get on to MSNBC's site, but experienced some difficulty in so doing. I figured, well, everyone's trying to get more details of what happened, but when I did manage to finally get on that site, I noticed very grim pictures. This was no little private plane hitting the building, this looked like a big jet that had hit, as flames and thick smoke emanted from the building. It was creepy to see something like that and on a bright, clear and sunny September morning, I had to wonder how something like that could have happened. An accident? The pilot slumping over from a heart attack or something weird? It baffled me, but before I had time to ponder what happened, another jet plane flew into the other tower of the World Trade Center. This was no accident. This was something far more serious and frightening. Something was definitely afoot and it was decidedly sinister and deadly. Not long after that, another jet plane slammed into the Pentagon and yet another into a farm field in Pennsylvania. Yes, this was definitely a coordinated attack on our country and it was terrifying to figure out who did this and why. At work, a large TV was mounted near the Circulation desk of the library where I work, so we all ended up leaving our offices to go out to watch the TV to see what was going on. Needless to say, nothing much got done that day. We watched in absolute, abject horror as the towers fell about an hour after they were hit and the rest of the day seemed to pass in a fog of surrealism.

I am now convinced that the entire attack was a set-up to justify the invasion of Iraq by the Bush/Cheney cabal in a blatant attempt to grab their oil for the United States. Most of the members of that administration were members of an ultra conservative think tank called the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) that had, as its agenda, a strong and muscular US military that would rule the world by military might a la the Roman Empire. In fact, I read a PNAC white paper that was written in the early 90's that called for a pre-emptive strike on Iraq, but said that such a thing would be hard to justify to the American people unless there was a "new Pearl Harbor", in which case the first thing that would happen after that would be to invade Iraq and topple its regime and nationalize its oil. Well, the invasion took place amidst cries of weapons of mass destruction that weren't there and the first thing they did after they toppled the Saddam Hussein regime was to protect the oil fields instead of protecting their cultural treasures. The museums were looted and priceless items were stolen, some which will never be recovered. The whole thing strikes me as utterly criminal and the fact that all of the things outlined in the PNAC white paper came to pass strikes me as a plan that had been in the works for many years. Add to that the cozy relationship between the Bush and bin Laden families for decades and it really leaves you to wonder about the whole thing. I smell a rat, and unfortunately, nothing will ever come of the crimes committed by our government in the name of oil profits and some warped idea of creating an American Empire. I suspect that the 3000+ people who died eight years ago today were victims of a criminal act committed by our government, not just a bunch of disgruntled Saudi Arabians bent on wreaking havoc on our country. Guess we'll never know, I suspect. How very sad for those who lost loved ones on this day eight years ago. My heart goes out to them on this terrible anniversary of a dastardly deed that probably had behind it some very evil people within our very own country who had a very warped agenda in mind. I grieve with each and every one of those families today.

What I don't like about the Obama plan

I listened carefully last night to President Obama's speech on health care reform. What I had hoped to hear, I didn't, and instead, I found myself deeply disappointed in his health care overhaul proposal. If you ask me, it seems as if it's too much of a giveaway to the insurance companies and doesn't do enough or go far enough to help people who are already insured to cope with high deductibles and co-pays. It doesn't do enough to rein in the high cost of health care. It doesn't do enough, period. Instead, Obama seemed to timid to really attack the real causes of the rising cost of health care, and that is insurance companies out to make profits for their shareholders at the expense of the health of the American people. It doesn't seem right that you need insurance just to go to an ordinary garden variety doctor office visit, which, without insurance, can cost up to $200. I remember when you didn't need insurance to visit a doctor or to have a routine test, but now, if you don't have insurance, it can nearly bankrupt you to see a doctor, and even if you have insurance, it can also bankrupt you because insurance pays for less and less these days. So giving insurance companies more customers to prey on instead of fixing the real problems, Obama failed, in my book, to really offer any real tangible solutions to the health care crisis. He's trying so hard to make nice with Republicans who are doing their level best to destroy him and I just want to yell at him and say, "Forget the Republicans! They won't make nice with you now and never will, so forget 'em! Be bold and forge ahead with the Democratic agenda, already!" But alas, he's determined to brook with obstructionist and naysaying Angry White Men who want nothing more than to return to power by doing everything in their power to destroy Obama.

So here is my list of what I don't like about the Obama plan:
1. It makes health insurance mandatory, a la the Massachusetts plan, which hasn't done anything to bring down health care costs, and if anything, has caused them to go up.
2. Obama offered the public option during his speech, then snatched it back in the face of Republican "boo's" by saying that he could live with and sign a bill without it. And anyway, he indicated that the public option would not be available to anyone currently insured, and that only about 4% of the population would actually be eligible for it under his plan, so it sounds like a very watered down plan to me. So what good would it do to even offer a public plan if only a handful of people are eligible for it? Sounds to me like Obama would much prefer to push people into private insurance plans, a nice hefty big early Christmas present for insurance companies and their shareholders.
3. A tax would be levied on employer health insurance plans, which will motivate more businesses to drop their health insurance for their employees, thus adding to the uninsured instead of lowering their number.
4. Small businesses would be exempt from having to offer health insurance, so if health benefits are taxable, small businesses that have insurance would drop it and those that don't, won't, adding still more to the uninsured. And let's face it, the majority of jobs created in this country are by small businesses, so you're talking a lot of people likely to be left uninsured by this plan.

So I ask you, how is any of this going to help overhaul our broken health care system? As far as I can tell, it won't, and if anything, it's going to add to our already burgeoning problems. There's got to be a better way to fix things, but what Obama had to say last night is not the answer. He's promoting ideas he opposed during his campaign, giving Republicans ample ammunition to once again paint Democrats as "flip-floppers" like they did with Kerry. I'm afraid that Obama has already sealed his doom as a one term President, as right wingers are gaining more power by inflaming the health care debate with wild rumors and screeching and braying screeds filling the airwaves with all kinds of anti-Obama, anti-health care reform rhetoric. The trouble is that people listen to them and believe them because they are the loudest voices in the room and get the most media coverage. So I see this entire health care reform attempt going down in flames, just as it has year after year, decade after decade, President after President. Sadly, it's just gotten too out of hand and too big to reform without rendering serious damage to our already fragile economy. It's going to take a miracle to fix what has been broken for far too long now.