Category Archives: Health

Catching Up

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Welcome to the end of July 2021! So much has happened, and most of it has passed without a blog entry. Life is a box of chocolates and sometimes you run into a really thick caramel and have to slow down.

COVID-19

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Photo by Chokniti Khongchum on Pexels.com

In the time I’ve been away, I discovered that on Saint Patrick’s Day 2021, March 17th, that I had contracted COVID-19 when I could no longer smell or taste anything. My test came back positive, but I didn’t have a strong illness associated with it. Then my mind cast back to January 2020, and when I thought that I had Norovirus, but upon reflection I think it might have been COVID-19 as well, except in January of 2020, COVID kicked my ass. So perhaps it was, perhaps it wasn’t, I didn’t get tested at the time. Then we all got the happy news that we were invited to have our first vaccination series with the Pfizer mRNA vaccine. Mine was on 3/30, and then subsequently again on 4/20. Now I have at least one true COVID-19 infection, and the mRNA, so that puts me in a pretty strong resistant category.

Working From Home & Working In The Office

During the entire pandemic, the state of Michigan opened and closed. We played the flirt game with spikes and surges and it was very ugly for quite a while. Restaurants closed up left and right, the only real dining game in town was those joints that decided to adopt a strong take-out offering. I bounced from Home to the Office, and in one of those bounces, I contracted COVID-19 from my workplace. Since then, I have had weight issues which naturally led to hypertensive issues as well. Since April I think, I’ve been back in the office, and back in the swing of things. I still quarantine myself, I still mask, and I still have lots of hand sanitizer. COVID-19 has changed how I behave, it created a host of new habits and since they can only help me, I have kept them going. I don’t know if I will ever let go of them.

Noom

On April 16th, 2021 I started the Noom program. I started at 331.4 pounds, and now I’m down to 291.4 pounds, on the program, with a lifetime goal of 220 pounds. The program is very good, the educational components are really quite valuable and I’m almost done with the education parts. I don’t think that I’m ready to “be free of the program” as I think what I need most is the discipline that the app offers me, the rigorous control over my food intake, and being careful so as to not over-indulge and gain back the weight I have lost so far. I definitely think that Noom is a diet that everyone could really benefit from, I don’t feel deprived or starving, and I still am losing weight.

Crochet

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Photo by Castorly Stock on Pexels.com

Over pandemic, I picked up a new hobby. Crochet, which is a style of working with yarn to make various fabrics and items. So far I’ve made many blankets, hats, gloves, and “Cat Pads” for donation to Kalamazoo Animal Rescue. I have discovered that Bernat Blanket, which is a 100% Polyester yarn works amazingly well for animal applications. The yarn is very strong, it can stand up to sanitization methods, and it doesn’t suffer when cats dig in with their claws. I started a WordPress.com blog Bluedepth’s Crochet and there I cover all the neat things that I’m exploring with the yarn arts.

One of the obvious and unfortunate things about yarn arts, and Crochet and Knitting is the gender issues that surround them. Both are seen as “women’s work” and so, much of the education and pattern supply is led by and for women. Obviously, there are some things that are unisex, and I do wish quite often that more people would try something like crochet or knitting, they may find something they truly love and celebrate as I do when I make something beautiful and it is instantly useful.

COVID-19 and Temperature Checks

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I see a lot of companies starting to “open up” during our running COVID-19 pandemic. Right at the top, almost invariably I find the line item that, paraphrased “All employees are temperature checked before they start work.” and then it goes on and on from there.

I think it is worthwhile to start a conversation to illuminate understanding on what temperature checks really are. They are not quickie medical tests to determine if someone is infected or not with COVID-19. They are simply a very easy diagnostic tool to isolate vectors of COVID-19 transmission. Remember, that COVID-19 can infect you without your knowledge, it can replicate in your body without your knowledge, and by the time your immune system calls for a fever, to begin work on fighting the infection, COVID-19 has already been in your system and active and spreading the entire time, back to a standard period of about two weeks.

What temperature checks that fail do, is show you that you have a vector in your midst. Save your bus fare, because when someone is showing a temperature elevation they have been sick for at least a week if not two. These people should be interviewed to see where they have been so that those who have come in contact with them can be tested and quarantined.

So, while companies want to re-open because of economic pressure, which I do fully understand, a temperature check, a good thing to do mind you, is pretty much just identifying a bomb that has been slowly going off for two weeks. It is not testing, it is not contact tracing, and it is not quarantine. You haven’t found a sick person as much as you have found a Typhoid Mary or a Typhoid Marv.

We need to test everyone. We need a vaccine. We need masks, hand-washing, and social distancing. Everything else is just a carefully monogrammed pillow invitation for COVID-19 to spread and kill more people.

Ugly White People, Wearing Masks, and Leaving Facebook

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So earlier today, after leaving our local megamart, which in this case is Meijer I was beset by wave after wave of ugly white people not wearing masks. I just cannot stand it, the absolute gall to put the public health at risk all because you want to be a dick about it. It is just beyond acceptable, even in our broken world, so I wrote a Facebook Post. I called them for what they are. Ugly White Pig Fuckers.

The Facebook AI flagged it as “Hate Speech” and so, since I have a long track record of calling out Russians for their shenanigans along with I’m sure other infractions that I have long since forgotten, I have been put in a time-out corner for three days on Facebook.

Almost everyone that I care about is on a shared Signal group, it’s a virtual pub where all my loved ones are also there and I can vent, and listen to my loved ones vent, and we can laugh and share things and because Signal is end-to-end encrypted, there is nobody there to tell me what I can or cannot say.

Very much like this blog too. I always mean to write more here on the blog, and this time-out from Facebook for 3 days is actually not a punishment but rather an invitation I think, to fully abandon the platform. The toxic people, the toxic stories, the endless and sensationalized bottom-of-the-barrel scrape that the wall has become. If I want to visit a wreched den of scum and villainy, at least Reddit doesn’t pretend that it is anything else than just another cultural latrine. Facebook is just a lemon-scented cultural latrine.

I pay for this blog and the service, so I can say whatever I please here without an obnoxious censorship AI locking my account out. Plus, it’s like TV, if you don’t like what I write on this blog, you are very much invited to forget all about it. Just don’t point your browser here, I will not be offended.

So instead of sharing things on Facebook, I’ll share them on this blog. The activity will pick up, maybe if I’m very lucky there will be a new community like Imzy, or perhaps something like LiveJournal before the filthy Russians got their grasping little fingers all over it. Everyone who reads the blog should know, I’m left AF, and while I am not Antifa, I am Antifa sympathetic, especially with the notion that anyone of good standing and solid heart will not hesitate to punch Nazi scum in the face.

So don’t look for me on Facebook. Look for me here. To Hell with Facebook.

Also… WEAR YOUR !@#$ MASKS IN PUBLIC!

Gin & Tonic

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Ever since COVID-19 started spreading around the world, there has been mutterings that an anti-malarial medication called hydroxychlorquine had some benefit to people with the virus. Perhaps it is with viral replication or viral implantation it is unclear to me, but the drug did bear a mention by scientists and doctors. I did a little reading and quine, chloroquine, and then hydroxychloroquine all seem to be fully synthetic versions of a very old drug, quinine.

This was exciting, because I knew full well that I had quinine in my house already. It’s an ingredient in Tonic Water. So when COVID-19 was spreading, people were panic buying left and right, and I was buying liter bottles of Tonic Water and a giant bottle of Gin.

I figure that I don’t want hydroxychloroquine, leave that to the FDA, the doctors, and scientists to argue over. I could very well dose myself, very low-dose, with quinine every day in a collins glass filled with ice, a splash of Gin, and top it off with Tonic Water. What is the damage? It’s a very low dose, its a delicious cocktail with only maybe an ounce of Gin per drink, and I spritz it with a little lime juice as a flavor addition when I like. Because the Tonic Water is cheap, $1.89 per liter, has the chemical that seems to work against COVID-19, maybe a regular micro-dose of quinine has some effect either in preventing COVID-19 from infecting me, killing it off when my immune system notices it, or quite possibly I haven’t been exposed to COVID-19 yet. Either way, liters of Tonic Water are very easy to find, making two or three glasses of Gin and Tonic go really well with lunch or dinner, and it can’t really hurt me. So, why not?

So I started to muse to myself on the topic of micro-doses of quinine for COVID-19. I don’t know, I’m not a doctor, and there aren’t any studies. Chances are it’s all placebo, but if it isn’t? What if three doses of Tonic Water, say 100ml each, with ten of these doses in a liter bottle – what if my daily Gin & Tonic drinks are helping?

Maybe it is helping, it certainly isn’t hurting me. What if this was the answer all along and it was in your liquor cabinet this entire time?

Done with Higher Ed

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I haven’t had a University dream in a long while. We were moved to new offices and I went exploring. Trying to find the vending machines I end up on a service elevator that heads to a basement. I don’t have the oddly shaped key that lets you return so I leave and discover that I’m in the middle of service corridors and I start to try to get outside. I end up in another one way hall in the library with an odd platform that seems to have only one function, to crush people. Like a compactor. I get out of there and end up in a sub-basement and eventually find my way out through a construction area with metal and glass doors allowing only exit, not entry. A student looking terrified actually gains entry and runs the other way. I make my way out to a courtyard and run into a younger student fleeing an older man who is chasing him with a machete. Then I wake up.

I can say that the part of my life where actually being inside University buildings is well and truly over. Here’s a dream exploring that awful place. I woke up and laughed, “Yeah, not going there ever again. You don’t have to wrap it in symbolism.”

Higher Ed, hah. Done with that.

White Christmas?

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Today in Kalamazoo Michigan we have a high of 43 and a low of 28. There is no snowpack on the ground, the ground is bare. Again we have a no-snow Christmas. We’ve had these for a few years now, and looking at the forecast, by Sunday we’ll have a high of 57 degrees and it’ll rain.

Things that used to be aren’t any longer, the seasons are shifting around, and even our USDA zone is changing and has over the past few years. More than that, you can feel that something is terribly wrong with the world. You can see it in the people, you can see it in the sky, the weather, the birds, and the remarkable and tragic lack of any sort of insect out there.

This is the season of hope and wonder, so I won’t harsh it, but we all know deep down what I would write if it wasn’t the holiday season.

Chesapeake Beard Company’s Mercury Beard Balm, 2oz.

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I encountered the Chesapeake Beard Company during a beard competition event at the Old Dog Tavern here in Kalamazoo, Michigan. They had a table set up, and they had an array of products available. Amongst all of their products, the Mercury line appealed the most. I bought both the oil and the balm, but the scents are nearly the same, so I’m only reviewing the balm. The product comes in a glass jar with a plastic lid. The balm is waxy, yellow in color and has the same consistency as the Viking Revolution balms, slightly firmer than Honest Amish and somewhat looser than the Reuzel.

The scent is the strongest of all my balms and oils and the fellow selling the product sold it as a homage to Freddie Mercury, that one of his favored drinks was a kind of Cherry and Rum flavored cocktail. This balm screams black cherry and a light undercurrent of rum running underneath. The fragrance is amazingly strong and has significant staying power. They use fragrance oils instead of other more easily diffused scents like linalool or vanillin. Much like how Honest Amish is an “exploding pumpkin pie,” Mercury by Chesapeake Beard is an exploding cherry pie. The scent is overwhelming and delightful. You likely wouldn’t use this balm if you were attempting a formal dress event where strong fragrances are frowned upon, but if you were in any other situation, this balm would be a home run. If you like cherries or if someone you know prefers cherries, this balm might be the perfect way to condition your beard and have a wonderful experience along for fun. I estimate that the fragrance lasts at least three to four hours long, significantly longer than any other balm, except perhaps the Honest Amish one.

It is worthwhile to note that they have renamed this product to Rhapsody, but they do include the old name, Mercury, on their website.

Reuzel Wood and Spice Beard Balm, 1.3oz

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The Reuzel Wood and Spice Beard Balm is a brand new fragrance from the Reuzel company. They immediately get top-choice amongst my beard products because they were the first ones I had, and they have performed admirably for me. The tin is just like the standard Reuzel, a screw-top aluminum canister with the product within. The Reuzel Wood and Spice Balm, much like its predecessor, suffers from the same unusual crystallization in the wax that the standard Reuzel suffers from. The solution is to warm Reuzel products up to melting and then let them gently cool. This fixes the problem for both the standard Reuzel and this one. The front has the recognizable Dutch pirate and on the back the ingredient list.

The balm itself is stiff, waxy, and quite solid. It scrapes with the back of the thumbnail readily and melts with ease when you work it in your hands. The color is bisque, and the scent is wonderful and subtle. The fragrance is warm with vanilla, wood scents, and spiciness that lends a kind of forest-guide warmth to the user. There are notes of butterscotch as well, which really appeals to me. It is a remarkable departure from the standard Reuzel fragrance, but still quite pleasant to use.

When pairing this balm with oil, either unscented, which would be best, or even the Honest Amish Premium Oil would work as both have notes of woodsy warmth that would compliment each other nicely. I can definitely see this becoming a standard entry in my beard care kit.

Bossman Magic Beard Balm, 2oz.

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Bossman Magic Beard Balm comes in a tin container, two ounces, much like all the other balms that I have reviewed. The product is not tested on animals, made in the United States, Austin, Texas, to be specific, and is made of only natural ingredients. The tin has labels on the obverse and reverse with directions and ingredients clearly written out. The tin itself doesn’t have screw grooves, so it is only secured by friction, this is not a problem when it comes to balms that I have experienced.

The balm is paper white in color and the scent, “Magic” smells clean and soapy, with notes of warmth, exuding cleanliness. The consistency is waxy, and the top lid claims that it will actively relax beard hairs. I’ve found it to be delightful to use, the scent lasts about an hour or so, and it has done well for my uses. This scent would pair best with unscented beard oil, and not a scented one unless it would be paired by a beard oil from Bossman themselves with matching scents.

I am looking forward to exploring more of the scents that Bossman sells, they have a four-scent pallette where Magic is just one of the available kinds. They also make a beard wash and beard oil, but I haven’t tested either yet.