Nah

[Karl Henning]

Reading on a park bench is the height of civilized living, I think.

[aleazk]

I woke up with a strange tinnitus in my left ear. A day after, it's still there. I think I will need to see a doctor this monday then... I use my left ear to listen to music, please, I hope there is nothing wrong with it! 

[NikF]

I woke up with a strange tinnitus in my left ear. A day after, it's still there. I think I will need to see a doctor this monday then... I use my left ear to listen to music, please, I hope there is nothing wrong with it! 

If you're not feeling dizzy and don't have any other symptoms it might just be a build up of ear wax or an infection. But yeah, it's important not to mess around. A visit to the doctor will be the best way to deal with it, although depending on where you live it could improve by the time you get an appointment.

[aleazk]

If you're not feeling dizzy and don't have any other symptoms it might just be a build up of ear wax or an infection. But yeah, it's important not to mess around. A visit to the doctor will be the best way to deal with it, although depending on where you live it could improve by the time you get an appointment.

Now I seem to feel better... but... ha... curiously, I slept wearing earplugs (very noisy around this part of the woods...) and the thing started when I woke up... it seems the ear wax diagnosis is right on the spot. Thank you, Dr.Nik! 

[NikF]

Now I seem to feel better... but... ha... curiously, I slept wearing earplugs (very noisy around this part of the woods...) and the thing started when I woke up... it seems the ear wax diagnosis is right on the spot. Thank you, Dr.Nik! 

Glad to hear it. 

[Karl Henning]

I must admit that I am fortunate to have avoided disaster (in a sense);  it is a long while since I backed up the electronic folders with my compositional work, but the task is now done — when I first hit Copy Here, the estimate it gave for the duration of the task was seven hours plus, but I knew that would prove inaccurate.  Shan't wait so long before running the drill again.

[NikF]

I must admit that I am fortunate to have avoided disaster (in a sense);  it is a long while since I backed up the electronic folders with my compositional work, but the task is now done — when I first hit Copy Here, the estimate it gave for the duration of the task was seven hours plus, but I knew that would prove inaccurate.  Shan't wait so long before running the drill again.

Peace of mind.

Until this year I'd four copies (original stored locally, three elsewhere) of most of my professional work. But it's not catalogued with much consistency.

[NikF]

Today I'm walking into town to drop off my guitar at the guitar repair guy and then I'll continue on the short distance to the end of the street, around the corner and along a few blocks by the riverside until I reach the gym.



(Panorama by John Knox. About 200 years later my gym is located roughly where the light toned building at the far end of the bridge is.)
If I go early enough I'll have a late breakfast after my workout, but if I don't I'll grab a couple of cheeseburgers from a nearby cafe - and that's a no lose situation right there.


e: on the way home I bought a suede jacket -



I have the same style in grey wool and also another in navy blue brushed silk. But that's enough jackets for now because most of the time I'll still be wearing my leather jacket.

Also, unlike the model in the photo the jacket won't be worn with jeans, because I quit wearing jeans when I was 40 (and when I was 50 I quit wearing gym shoes outside the gym) but it'll still be part of a good number of fits.

[Karl Henning]

Yesterday was the day of sleep by stages.  The missus was to return on a bus, and would not arrive in Boston much before midnight—which is well past my bedtime.  The plan was that I would catch a good nap before heading to South Station to pick her up.  A happy improvisation was a 90-minute nap in the afternoon.

—My latest Music Which Just Sends Me Into the Blissful Deep-Relaxation Zone is, Schoenberg's arrangement of Joh. Strauss II's Roses From the South for harmonium, piano & string quartet.  This is not at all the same as "boring music," no, no, no.—

I was awakened from the nap by a call from my old mate Paul, who rang from the beach down Boca Raton way.  He caught me up on his new job at St-Paul's-in-the-Cabana (it's all going splendidly).

I then relaxed by watching the 1966 Batman movie and the fourth Indiana Jones adventure, eating a lovely broiled salmon during the latter.  At eight o'clock, the missus confirmed that she was aboard a bus, and trundling up West 59^th Street.  So I lay down to rest again.

When my alarm went off at 10:50pm (my alarm plays the CD and track which I have selected, in this case Granados's Allegro de concierto), I felt very fresh, felt that I had gotten good rest, and it was not any wrench to get up, attire, and make my way to South Station.

Maria's bus had left a bit more than half an hour later than scheduled, but the traffic is light enough at that time, that I counted on their making up the time.  Which they did, and then some;  my mom-in-law & I did not have a tedious wait at the station.

When we got home, the hay I did hit, and passed back into sleep without great effort.  And this morning I awoke perfectly well rested . . . I am not at all the "work zombie" I might have been.

[kishnevi]

Today I'm walking into town to drop off my guitar at the guitar repair guy and then I'll continue on the short distance to the end of the street, around the corner and along a few blocks by the riverside until I reach the gym.



(Panorama by John Knox. About 200 years later my gym is located roughly where the light toned building at the far end of the bridge is.)
If I go early enough I'll have a late breakfast after my workout, but if I don't I'll grab a couple of cheeseburgers from a nearby cafe - and that's a no lose situation right there.





e: on the way home I bought a suede jacket -



I have the same style in grey wool and also another in navy blue brushed silk. But that's enough jackets for now because most of the time I'll still be wearing my leather jacket.

Also, unlike the model in the photo the jacket won't be worn with jeans, because I quit wearing jeans when I was 40 (and when I was 50 I quit wearing gym shoes outside the gym) but it'll still be part of a good number of fits.

Huzza on finding the jacket.  But really:  I am 58, and when not at work (where we are expected to dress "professionally", I wear jeans all the time. When I want to feel dressy I have designer jeans, mostly Guess. Otherwise I wear Levis and Old Navy. Khakis and chinos make me feel overdressed.  I don't wear sneakers every day, because I like to wear sandals.  This is South Florida after all.

My one concession to age is not wearing skinny jeans.  Slim fit is sexy enough works well for me.

Funny thing is, that although I was a child of the 60s, and was a teenager in the 70s, I never wore a pair of jeans until I was 20, in college, and living away from home.

(BTW, my mental picture of you pegged you about 40 y.o.)

[aleazk]

I started to typeset on the computer a set of very detailed notes (nearly three notebooks) on a subject in general relativity (called global methods) which I took five years ago when I was studying it (and a bit obsessed). The final goal would be to make those notes into a textbook. I think this is the right time for this because, with all the new stuff about colliding/merging black holes from the ligo gravitational waves detectors, likely there will be a new peak of interest on this from many young researchers. These methods are necessary to prove some very hard theorems that give some very general results about the dynamics of such systems. These results were obtained in the 1970s, mostly by S.Hawking, so there's nothing really very new (maybe except for some few things). Nevertheless, any researcher entering into the field of black hole mergers has to be familiar with these results since they provide the general big picture on which one further investigates the details. The theorems as well as the methods are presented in a book by Hawking which is infamously hard to read because it uses an awkward notation and redaction style. Worse, the proof of one of the most important theorems (the one that says that the resulting black hole stabilizes to a configuration that can be described by only three parameters, which are mass, angular momentum and charge, and which is called a Kerr black hole) is scattered in many different papers by different authors, where each contributed to solve some part of the proof. This theorem can actually be seen in the wave profile obtained by ligo, since the merging ends in a ringdown (in my opinion, that should be enough to give a Nobel prize to Hawking and all the other authors that contributed to that proof). My book aims to be more accessible and readable.

On the other hand, I have been also typesetting for some time now another set of notes with the hope to complete a very ambituous  book about mathematical quantum mechanics which goes from the basics to quantum gravity. I have two and a half chapters of eight so far, as well as several appendices which develop with some detail many topics that are needed for reading the book.

So far, progress is steady but somewhat slow. I wish I could do it faster.

I have been working quite hard on these projects lately... again, progress is steady but somewhat slow. I really get very tired after so many hours of such a monotonous task (from the physical point of view, intellectually is quite fun) of being seated in front of a screen in the same position... and I still have a whole very dense, minuscule calligraphy notebook of handwritten stuff which I want to include in these things... not sure if it's worth the pain... I mean, the prize is beautiful... but the process is really draining.

[NikF]

Huzza on finding the jacket.  But really:  I am 58, and when not at work (where we are expected to dress "professionally", I wear jeans all the time. When I want to feel dressy I have designer jeans, mostly Guess. Otherwise I wear Levis and Old Navy. Khakis and chinos make me feel overdressed.  I don't wear sneakers every day, because I like to wear sandals.

Yeah, I'm aware that jeans can be styled in a number of ways. And you certainly sound like you've got your look together.
My reasons for not wearing them are many and range from stuff like while the exercise hasn't quite made my thighs resemble the those of a cyclist, they're way out of proportion and so it's difficult to find a fit. And then there's the fact that I like the leather jacket, silk scarf, boots, T-shirt combo but the jeans are then (for my taste) overkill.
It's funny though, because quite often I worked with the same group of people who knew my fashion likes/dislikes and on one occasion wardrobe made me a denim camera strap.

This is South Florida after all.

Over the years I've travelled to both the east and west coasts of the US, but outside of the novels of Carl Hiaasen I've never been to Florida although I've always thought it sounds bizarre cool.

(BTW, my mental picture of you pegged you about 40 y.o.)

I'm not sure I've ever felt my age. Emotionally and physically I feel about 30. And speaking of the physical...

...while Monday is nominally chest/triceps gym day, today is back/biceps. But because I don't directly work my biceps (the chin ups/weighted chin ups for my back take care of that) it's mostly a couple of different rows and a few sets of hammer curls. If I take a pair of gloves the heavy bag gets 3x3 minute rounds. I've no idea yet what I'll eat post workout.

[NikF]

I have been working quite hard on these projects lately... again, progress is steady but somewhat slow. I really get very tired after so many hours of such a monotonous task (from the physical point of view, intellectually is quite fun) of being seated in front of a screen in the same position... and I still have a whole very dense, minuscule calligraphy notebook of handwritten stuff which I want to include in these things... not sure if it's worth the pain... I mean, the prize is beautiful... but the process is really draining.

I don't know anything about your work, but I do know that when I've a task that seems tiresome the memory of it fades quickly while the eventual reward remains lasting and the experience as a whole beneficial.

[Karl Henning]

Although the search for a replacement organist is still in progress, I have populated all the Sundays in September and October with subs.  Since I have not yet worked with any of these colleagues, I was loath to just hire any one for an entire month, so I have some four organists in a rotation.

It is not a crippling concern, but I wonder if the delay in finding a suitable accompanist may necessitate our forgoing the Christmas Concert this year.  My hope is still green:  we may yet find someone who is so reliable a musician, that he/she can come aboard and get right into the swing of it all.

Sure, the search is a bit of A Project, but (a) I am very fond of the HTUMC congregation, and I want to find them(/us) a good, suitable organist, and (b) since I am the Music Director, if I cannot get this done, who at the church could?  It's my job, of course.  Not just a job, though: a labor of love.

[NikF]

When I got home from the gym there was a letter from the council member informing me that all the structural tests have finally finished and that they're sorry for the inconvenience. But I think I'll give it one more week before calling the estate agent and asking them to put the house on the market...

[Karl Henning]

Festina lente . . . .

[NikF]

Festina lente . . . .

Absolutely. And I like to think that's my default across the board.
Having said that, I've allowed a small celebration in the form of having (courtesy of my kind neighbour) a slice of Battenburg cake with a cup of tea.



https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battenberg_cake

[Crudblud]

I have been working quite hard on these projects lately... again, progress is steady but somewhat slow. I really get very tired after so many hours of such a monotonous task (from the physical point of view, intellectually is quite fun) of being seated in front of a screen in the same position... and I still have a whole very dense, minuscule calligraphy notebook of handwritten stuff which I want to include in these things... not sure if it's worth the pain... I mean, the prize is beautiful... but the process is really draining.

Take breaks every hour, do some exercise or get something to eat, it helps in my experience. I'm sure the effort will be worth it in the end.

[Karl Henning]

Definitely, regular breaks, and get off the tuchus.

[aleazk]

I don't know anything about your work, but I do know that when I've a task that seems tiresome the memory of it fades quickly while the eventual reward remains lasting and the experience as a whole beneficial.

Yes, I try to focuss on that. After all, what would be the point of this life without those lasting things...