Well, the heat wave is over and life is back to normal.  I want to note something here, I'm not really complaining about the heat for myself.  Yeah, it was hot.  Yeah, I may have even had a touch of heat exhaustion.  Yeah, it was my own fault, so I'll own up to that.  No, any changes I made to my plans and lifestyle during the past week were for the family dog.  It's silly in a way, but it's only a week out of my life, and it's not like I spent the entire week in my room, in the dark, doing nothing.  There were a couple periods like that, but I'd like to call them sleep. 

Actually, I had lots of problems sleeping.  Ah, blah blah blah dog.  I'm not here to blame anything on the dog except my allergies.

Anyway, during the week, Seti@home was either turned way down or totally shut down.  It's back up, I'm doing work again, it'll be a couple days before the numbers return to where they were.  I can't make that time up, but I can get back to doing what I was.  In that area at least.  On a side note, there were stretches of time when all of the computers were turned off as well.  One almost only runs Seti@home and the rest of the stuff it does I either lived without or did on the main computer.  It's a little more complicated and crowded, but it's that much less heat. 

I also didn't watch a lot of television either.  Just enough Forensic Files to keep the DVR from overfilling.  Actually, now that I think about it, I didn't watch an entire episode of Forensic Files either.  They were all repeats that I'd seen dozens of times.  I'm a fan of Forensic Files, but this is ridiculous.  Then again, it was good for this week. I'm not too sad.

I did get to play some old computer games like Doom, Heretic, Terminal Velocity, and um.. Minesweeper.  There was some downtime and playing computer games is both therapeutic and pretty easy.  I don't have to hook anything up, I don't have to have lights on or special equipment running, and I can do it with the fan on full blast (for the dog).  Even internet movies get pretty hard to watch for me with all the background noise.  I have headphones too.  Dang hearing.

That isn't to say I gave up on the plan or list, but there were times when I just got frustrated enough at the distractions caused by the heat or the dog or I got tired of fighting with the fan to read the book I was reading.  Magazines were even worse, by the way.  So, during these periods, I found other things to fill my time and some of them were even productive.  One, might hold a promise, but it needs more time to do proper research and thinking about it.  I started that, but it's not something I want to rush into. 

While we're on that, I hesitate to promise more than I can deliver since it seems I do that a lot, but there is more promise.  Well, there are more possibilities than I thought of.  How useful these possibilities may be aren't fully apparent to me.  But it gives me a little more hope for the future.  Don't get me wrong - I'm still plenty ambivalent about my future, but I'm not slicing my wrists just yet.  I'm not suicidal anyway.  A more accurate description would be that if I fell down dead this very instant, I would be a little more disappointed than I would have if it had happened a month ago.  As I said, ambivalent.

I've also made a lot more plans and got a lot more ideas.  I may have even been productive, but it's hard to say.  I passed a milestone last month and I never remarked about it in the blog - namely, that it's been five years since I've been in this position by my own choices and by circumstance.  I won't say that it's been entirely unproductive, but it has hardly been fruitful.  Still, I know a lot more than I did before.  I know pitfalls that I want to avoid as well.  I think I have a more independent voice than I did as well, less imitative of others who influenced me over the years.  Is it enough?  Well, if I ever produce something, it might be.

Anyway, enough typing for the moment, I have to finish reading this library book.

- Jim

For those keeping track, while the heat wave continues, I have limited my Seti@home work to almost nothing.  Yeah, the heat sucks.  Yeah, I'm worried about my computer.  The family dog has been taking refuge in the relative relief of the computer room and since the relief is just that - relative, I've been turning off electronical devices as much as possible to lower the heat generated by them. 

The only exception is my air filter, which I just turned back on.  It doesn't create a lot of heat, nor use a lot of electricity, but since I still stay in here most of the day working, it helps with my allergies.  As I said, I worry about the dog, but I'm very allergic to her.  Sigh.

Uh anyway, while all that's going on, it's been harder to get anything done.  I've done what I can, but to be honest, it's not as much as I was doing just a week ago.  Stuff like this just takes more time out of the day.

- Jim

I got this message today:

Your browser is no longer supported by Blogger. Some parts of Blogger will not work and you may experience problems.
If you are having problems, try Google Chrome.

That's all well and good.  I mean, Microsoft does it to force people to use their programs.  Wouldn't it be better though to make a better browser that people would WANT to use instead of trying to trick or force them into using it?

For the record, I use Chrome.  Just not all the time, nor do I use it to post my blogs.  If that has to change, then I can just as easily take the blogs offline.  I've been meaning to do it for a while anyway.

It's still a win for you, Google, but not by much.

- Jim

I hope this won't become a regular occurrence, but my house, if I remember correctly, is something like 120 years old.  I know it's well more than a hundred years old.  I firmly believe that it was wired for electricity before they realized that electricity could do useful things.  Anyway, with the heat wave the area is experiencing, combined with the fact that the wiring could withstand no more than a single small piddly air conditioner, I have turned Seti@home off.  Well, mostly off.  It runs a bit in the night usually, but not much.

Honestly, I could withstand more heat, but the computer runs hot anyway, and the dog is not doing well.  Fur sounds like a great idea in the winter, but it's probably torture in weather like this.  I've been running Seti@home for years, but it's not worth a dog's life.

Anyway, I've been reading, doing a little writing, but mostly reading.  I finished A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin, and I'm working on a book I got from the library - The Midnight Disease.  Very interesting reading.  I've got the next three books in the A Song of Fire and Ice series, so I'll keep busy for a while.

- Jim

This isn't a new idea, though it is mostly a new post.  I've written similar ones to it, but I don't think I've ever let them survive to be seen. 

I am mostly the same person I was back when I graduated from high school.  I still like the same things, I still play the same games - or at least am still interested in the same games, I still read the same books, watch the same kinds of shows, and listen to the same music.  But.  I am older, and if not wiser, then I am more bitter and less hopeful about the future.  I am less blinded by optimism and more guarded in my feelings.  But my beliefs about right and wrong haven't changed much at all. 

And so, the old me is still here, not so far away from the me that I am today.  He looks at me and is often disgusted.  I am often disgusted with myself.  Yeah, he understands that I've been injured, for example.  He knows I don't get around as easily as I used to.  But he wouldn't accept the life I lead, though he'd probably understand me being as antisocial as I am sometimes.  Even he liked being alone more than he liked being with others.

But this... the existence I lead - non-productive, non-fun, non-functional existence would kill him.  It kills me.  It shames me that I contribute so little to my own existence.  It shames me even more that I have so little an excuse for my lack of productivity.  The words of some cut deeply - Who do I think I am, believing I know something when I do so little?

I don't have an answer, but I more often believe they're right. 

- Jim

It's about that time again.  I don't allow comments on this blog because this isn't meant to be a debate, but rather a sort of public newsletter.  Still, every now and then people want to get ahold of me.  Still, I don't make it too easy, because again, there's too many people on the internet with nothing better to do than start trouble.  I figure if you go to the effort, it actually means something.

Down on the right, way at the bottom is a single link to email me.  Otherwise, I'm found all over the internet as Mentor397, like the title of the blog.

- Jim

I'm making the attempt to write more, and spend more time writing.  Not here certainly, but in the novels.  Anyway, due to recent events, the schedule is all messed up anyway.  I haven't truly abandoned it, but I've not spent the time on it that I should have. 

Another thing you may notice (or not), is that my progress in Seti@home has slowed.  I've noticed that even on cool days, the computer runs very hot when Seti@home runs.  On these really hot days, I flinch.  I've been shutting computers and programs down as the heat intensifies.  I have plans to mitigate, I think, but it'll have to wait a few days as I get supplies and funds.

- Jim

So the guy who got me interested in politics in high school and who got me back into church is now a fan of skeptic Christopher Hitchens and doesn't vote.  The world is a topsy turvy place.

- Jim

Well, now things are... better.  I'll be online for the foreseeable future.  That very big problem actually managed to mostly get fixed, turning it into a much more manageable issue. 

However... in all the excitement, my sister had a sort of mini seizure.  It as probably less stress related and more like... um, heat stress related.  Things have quieted down on their own though, but it's atypical both in the event and the followup.  I'm not sure how to handle that idea.  Yeah, I'm happy it seems to be over, but I'm nervous when things go differently than they usually do.

"Usual" is a relative term, of course. 

Anyway, just figured I'd give an update, such as it is.

- Jim

Well, things are worse.  One of the bad things about living in the situation I do is that while it's cheap, every so often, finances tend to explode due to bad decisions.  Not mine, of course, but they always seem to explode farther than I can mitigate.

So here we are again.

At any time it seems I will likely be offline.  If that happens, it we be for a long, long time.

- Jim

It's been a period of upheaval these past days.  I'm handling it as best I can, but my usual diplomatic self is well, not my usual diplomatic self.  So I've been keeping myself offline as much as possible and off social media as much as I can.  I still check messages and reply if needed, but I'm limiting my participation in everything else.  I should be back in 8 days.  I hope.

For the moment, my priorities are just trying to stay sane.  In the future, if things work out, my priorities will be far different.  I'm not going to repeat this process any more than I have to.

Unfortunately, expect more of these periods for a while.  We must all pay for the consequences of our actions and of those around us.

- Jim

Okay, the Sister is home and is sleeping.  What little I know about these things is that after one of them happens, she gets very tired.  She'll likely sleep for the rest of the day.

As much as things can be, all is well now.

- Jim

At the risk of sounding like I may be complaining a bit, last night was the first weekend of summer vacation.  My nephew ran away from home, necessitating a search by police and family.  He was found a couple hours later.  My Sister was taken by ambulance about a half hour ago to the ER after suffering a seizure and hallucination.

A long night.  Luckily I had enough caffeine to get me through it.  I'll post later if I hear anything else.

- Jim

I don't write in this blog enough.  To tell you the truth, as amazing as it sounds, days when work gets done just aren't that exciting.  Work being a relative term, mind you.  Think of it less as work and more like a working Bucket List, I suppose.  I've always wanted to read, A Tale Of Two Cities, for example, so it goes on the list.  As the list lengthened beyond all hope of ever finishing, I've broken parts of it up, in order to keep things more manageable.  A Tale Of Two Cities is still on the list, but I probably won't read it for a year or more.

Anyway, I had the usual allergy episode, though it was lengthened.  It started earlier, and the sleepiness part of it came later, I think.  Seriously, for the last couple weeks, all I've done is sleep.  I'll be up for a couple hours, the headache (if not present already) comes a couple hours later, and I get sleepy from allergies or allergy meds or both.  It's a wonder I got anything done at all, and usually I didn't.

There were the usual family issues - injuries, illness, drama, etc.  It's not been boring around here. 

Anyway, among other ongoing projects, I've started reading, A Game Of Thrones.  If you remember, I got it around my birthday last year, which would make it sometime in August.  Yeah, I'm actually further behind than that with everything, but I figured that I needed to start it.  I'm in no rush though - I don't have the fifth book and the series isn't even all published (or written) yet.  I hate waiting.

Anyway, that's about it.  I'm outta here.

- Jim

Stalkers gotta stalk.

I used to think this guy might have had a reason for what he's doing.  Now I just think he does it for attention. 

- Jim

I have to brag for a minute.  The first million cobblestones for Seti@home took me a long time - more than five years, I think.  I now passed my third million mark.  WOOOO!

Heh.  Yeah, it's not a record for anyone but me, but I'm pretty happy about it.

- Jim

I know that statistically speaking, May is no worse than any other month for tragedies and sorrow.  I know that it is superstitious to think so.  And yet, May is not my friend.

My 4th grade Sunday School teacher died.  I know it sounds odd, but he was one of the two people that got me really into the whole church thing.  I'm sure he had his flaws, but if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be as religious as I am today.  Why he put up with helping me as much as he did speaks wonders for his patience and dedication.

I'm not saying I was a bad kid, but there is always room for improvement.  It's one thing to try and help your own kids, or the popular kids.  It's another thing to help the kids that most of the rest of the church look down upon. 

He's a good guy.  The world is poorer for his passing, but I'm sure Heaven is much richer for it.

- Jim

One look at my year-long to-do list would reveal a problem:  namely, that there isn't enough time in a year to get to everything on the list.  In addition, a year is a long time, and things invariably pop up that are unintended.  The recent book challenge was one of them.  Yeah, I had put writing on the list, but that kind of book was unanticipated. 

What I've done recently, is that I've cut the year up into segments of one to three months.  The deadlines are just as arbitrary as anything else I do, but it helps to show where I am, and makes the list look more manageable.  My success has been limited however, because well, there's still too much to do in such a short span of time.  Some of the issues have been overestimating what I could possibly do, personal drama, family drama, and outside events.  I'm not really going to go into details.  May, as one example, is a horribly bad month for me. 

Oh yeah, this is May.

That being said, it hasn't been just failure after failure.  I've gotten my reading and my DVR more under control.  While neither are perfectly managed, they are better so.  Life is about learning, and the simple fact is that I want to do too much all at once.  Sometimes it leads to overload. 

The thing is that I don't have many day to day tasks.  Reading the paper.  Hygiene.  Eating.  That's about it.  All of the other things I work on tend to be bigger, usually much bigger.  Laid out end to end, my DVR last week would have required more than seventy-four hours to get through all the stuff saved on it.  While some hours are worth more than others, I now have twenty percent free where I had three last week.

I will admit that watching television doesn't really pass as work, but it is often an effort that must be balanced against other demands of my time.  Writing is something that can go on forever - I know, I've seen it.  The task there is also to break it into more manageable segments without making it more work than it needs to be.  The simple truth is that I'm still learning how to write and learning how to make it all come together.  Being a dungeon master for an RPG game was good experience, but all the time in the world doesn't mean you get more done.  It means each story can be endlessly polished.  Forever.

I tend to babble.  Anyway, things seem to be happening more, even with the whole May thing going on.  Most of that stuff is over now, I hope.  The rest is just life.

- Jim

I didn't finish the story by my self-imposed deadline.  Part of that is simply the nature of the month of May.  This is the where the whole "Month From Hell" came from and there are a lot of periods where I go to darker places.  When I don't go there, I still remember them and mark the occasions.  Part of it is simply the nature of the beast.  It was an imperfect rushed job when I wrote it sixteen years ago, and rushing now isn't going to finish it.  I refuse to spend forever on this project, but I want to make sure I do it right.

Oh yeah.  May 16th.  I used to mark that day too.  I suppose I still do, in my own way, but with more bitterness and regret.  No, I don't regret the things I had to do, but I do regret that they had to happen.  I'm sure that won't matter to some, but I'm not living for the approval of others any more either.

- Jim

@FoxBroadcasting - HEY HEY!  There There!  Put Breaking In back on the air!  HEY HEY!  There There!  Put Breaking In back on the air!

- Jim