This was a discussion yesterday on Twitter, after Stephen posted his blood pressure [presumably from a checkup], and then a variety of us were discussing blood pressure and such. For those who don’t know, Mom had a severe stroke in 2000; we are blessed to still have her with us. The last couple of years, I’ve been cognizant of my blood pressure and working to reduce it with medication and lifestyle changes. [The former has had far better effect, but I'm working on the latter.]

I use an Omron automatic blood pressure monitor to check mine, and I try to measure it twice a day: in the morning after I awaken, and sometime after dinner. I keep my unit near my desk, and I will wait until I have been seated at my desk for ten to fifteen minutes before I break out the cuff. [I've been out here at my desk for about a half-hour after waking up, reading email and generally plugging back into the Internet.] The Omron has a memory for logging, but I choose to use my iPhone for the logging. I use IncisiveGeek’s BP Tracker, available for $1.99 in the App Store. It’s handy, and I can snag readings when I’m at the doctor’s office, too. In fact, I usually get appreciative looks from the nurse when I ask, “Hey, what was my BP and pulse rate?” and start tapping it into the screen.

For those who are curious, which includes my mother … since 24 Oct, when I started using this app, I’m running 128/75 on average. A little higher than I’d like, but given how crappy work has been of late, I’ll take it.

As a sidenote: right around the first of the year, I decided to hit Starbucks up early in the evening [don't ask why; I don't have a good answer]. That was a terrible choice for me, personally—my systolic spiked 25% because of the espresso, and my diastolic was up 30%. Standard levels of caffeine are generally not dangerous for me, but … whatever turbo fuel was in that cup made me feel just horrible. When I was feeling that bad, I took the reading, confirming that my BP spiking is why I felt like crap. Blood pressure is called the silent killer, but it’s really not that hard to listen to your body, folks.

[Note: this is not to say that Starbucks is bad for you, or that they were trying to kill me with that peppermint mocha. It's just that I clearly have a sensitivity to espresso now that I have largely weaned myself from caffeine. Knowing what doesn't work for your body is as important as knowing what does work for it.]

Every autumn at my house, there are two great days for me:

1. The day I can turn off my air conditioner, open up my windows, and let Nature cool the house. Admittedly, I do this as early as I can, and there are days when it hits 30C upstairs during the day, but I can live with that to not run my A/C.
2. The day I have to close my windows because it’s too cold outside to leave them open at night, but yet not too warm during the day that my house gets hot if they stay shut.

Today is that second day. In case you’re wondering, yes, I do eventually turn on the heat pump, but only when it gets below 5C outside or so. My house holds heat pretty well, and so do I; it’s only when pipes are ready to freeze that I’ll fire up the heat, and even then I only keep it around 15C downstairs; it’ll be near enough to 20C upstairs to be comfortable. It helps that my neighbors on both sides really like to run their heat up high, as I get some of their residual heat through the common walls between our townhouses.

So, let’s see … the ear infection killed my Friday, so I didn’t go to visit my parents over the weekend as expected. Presumably, I was going to work. But no. I felt like crap all weekend. I went in to the office to get my work laptop around 0630 yesterday, came home, went back to sleep, got up in time to go to Hooters for my boss’s birthday lunch [it's his wife's idea; honest], came home, went back to sleep [for as much as I hate to sleep, I love to sleep when on vacation], and when I considered working last night, my ear got to acting up again. Gah.

I haven’t done diddly crap today, other than canceling my reservations for the chalet. I figured it was 50-50 that I’d still feel like dogmeat, and I didn’t want to be spending $200+ to feel like dogmeat in Guntersville when I could feel like dogmeat in Madison.

At some point, I still have to do some work. Oh, and my count for work phone calls this week is already at five. I have probably three or four hours’ worth of work to do, and then I can forget about work [yeah, right] for the rest of the week.

So what am I doing? Finalizing plans for the long-overdue desk-building in the loft [ready to be doing layout later this week ... am probably putting the chalet money towards prototyping], sleeping, and generally not saying a word. This probably surprises some people who know the gregarious, outgoing, extroverted me, but when I’m alone, I go into complete hermit mode. [This surprises exactly none of the people that have ever lived with me, however.] Also, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about random things, and that’s good. This is, functionally, a week-long passive soak. Intuitively, companies understand this, and that’s why I’m getting paid to sit on my ass right now.

I should’ve known better than to make any damn plans for my vacation. My plans never survive contact with the enemy. :casts an eye towards the motto of this Weblog’s jokey name:

Several years ago—at least eight, given where I was living at the time—I got a middle ear infection and an external infection in the same ear. I remember that narcotics really didn’t make it stop hurting; the only thing that touched it was one Extra Strength Tylenol paired with 1000mg of ibuprofen. [Before you shake your head, I had an RN tell me about that combination. She said that she'd had that stop pain when nothing else would, not even narcotics.]

Oh yes … right before I start my vacation, I’ve come down with the same combination of maladies. I’m so thrilled. I went to the doctor for the middle ear infection on Monday, and the external one really fired up today, causing me to leave work so I could go back to the doctor. I’ve got these drops that are supposed to dull the pain [no dice] and more that are antibiotics [I think those might actually be working], costing me $100 combined. [Amusingly, the narcotic? $10.] Until the Darvocet kicked in a half-hour ago, I was intermittently yelping just to get the pain stress out of my body. Now I’m sorta … dulled to it all.

Oh yeah, I’m gonna hit up a 24-hour drugstore about 0500 for some Extra Strength Tylenol … that’s the only way I’ll make it through tomorrow. :sigh:

Got all the shopping done last night. Got most of the laundry done last night. Was finishing it this morning, when, about 1100 … WHAM. Felt like I’d been run over by a train. Putting my shoes on to drive over to the bank was an ordeal. Waiting in line at the bank, I couldn’t hold my head up—too shaky and weak.

Got home, and the fever kicks in.

Yeeeeep, I’m afraid I might have the flu. Slept the afternoon away, and all I do right now is hurt. The fever has subsided some, but … meh.

Hopefully I’ll feel fine in the morning and can pack up and go see family like I intended to do today. Otherwise, well, I’m gonna just be very pissed off at having the flu for Christmas.

C’mon, Santa! Even work said that I’ve been good this year. What’s the deal?

Well, I am home. Feels pretty good to be here, even if I feel like crap. My ear’s getting better, albeit slowly … and it’s definitely time for some ibuprofen and another round of drops. More later when I have had some more sleep…

Well, we had the funeral and committal yesterday in Delphos. Funerals are for the living, and we certainly needed it, even if we didn’t want it.

Afterwards, we started making the drive back, having decided to do so late on Wednesday night. Unfortunately, my right ear started to bother me yesterday—another blasted ear infection. I figured that I could make it until I got home—which I would do today [on Friday], a day early, because we’re only seven hours from west Tennessee—but after a couple hours of sleep, it’s obvious to me that I won’t make it that far without serious complications. My right ear canal is, unfortunately, swollen shut by this moment [0130 EST]. Unfortunately, both aren’t closed, so I can still hear the chorus of snoring Morris men in the room.

I’ve looked up a doc-in-a-box in Beavercreek, and I’ll be waiting on them to open at 0800. Joy, joy, joy.

Things are generally busy around here, but last night, I got a call no one ever wants to get; my sister-in-law Cindy suffered a seizure, and Doug was calling me from the ambulance on the way to the hospital. As of now, she’s still in the ICU, albeit slowly improving; at mid-afternoon, she knew roughly why she was in there, but was still pretty groggy.

As you can imagine, it’s been pretty stressful. If y’all know my brother and anything about his regular work, you know that he normally goes in to the office by 0330 to do prep for the pre-Today show at his local NBC affiliate. The timing of this could hardly have been worse, as Doug normally would have been winding down to head towards bed in another hour or so.

I’ll echo his thoughts: I’d appreciate thoughts and prayers sent his and Cindy’s way.

Well, I started coming down with a cold late last night. Joyous. I have been a one-man snot factory today. Hopefully none of my friends here picked this up from me at our gathering last night. [I was feeling kinda meh, y'all, but I thought it was a sinus infection and not a cold, and I really wanted to see everyone.]

In other news, things at work continue unabated. The week off was awesome, and I’m glad that I took it, because if I hadn’t, the crazy events of the last two days might have put me over the edge. [It's all been good, very, very good. If this business is feast or famine, well ... let's just say that we have more leftovers than you did at Thanksgiving and Christmas combined. And no refrigerator. It's cuh-razy, y'all.] As it is, my head’s still spinning, but it’s like, “Wow, this is nuuuuuuts.” In a good way.

Posting may be light while we absorb the glut and while I fight off the rhinovirus.

Well, as I’m awake due to indigestion or something, I’ll happily note that my left ear has begun to reach that largely unblocked state that I’ve come to know and love with having a few of these external ear infections over the last few years. In terms of attenuation, it’s now something like -12dB in that ear instead of the -30dB or more that it’s felt like for the last few days. Good timing, since I’d like to work today, and working involves being able to hear people on the phone…

I’ve been spending time with Alex King’s 404 Notifier over the last week or two slowly fixing 404 errors. A lot of mine have to do with images: I’ve had two or three collection points for images, and none of those were ever “right” compared to how images are organized by WP now. [Finally, WP's solution is good enough that it's just what I use. I never fire up an FTP client anymore.] I sat down this morning to work on that, and a couple hours later, I’m done.

This was the perfect I’m-sick-and-don’t-want-to-deal-with-anyone task. Honestly, I feel a whole lot better today; I think my left ear will be fairly cleared up by tomorrow, enough that I could go to work and function normally. Ever since Friday night, I’ve been stressed on how I’d work at the office, since … well, it would be hard to answer the phone, and I do a lot of that. But I hear a whole lot better in my left ear today, and my right ear seems to be improving as well [although the wick has come out of it, so I probably need to go back and have another re-inserted].

I’m so deaf that I’m sitting out here in the office, right above the front door, and I never heard my roommate leave the house, much less get up, take a shower, or do anything of that sort. I just looked up-and-outside a minute ago and realized that his truck was no longer there.

Trying to find humor in the situation at all times, lest I go insane,
GFM

I now have a lovely case of otitis externa in both ear canals. Both are swollen and have ear wicks inserted, so I’ve got greatly diminished hearing. This will be the case for the next few days as my immune system and the antibiotics fight back, so if you need to contact me, please do so by email or other textual conveyances if at all possible. I can hear, but just not that well. [Well, I can hear myself breathe quite well, thanks.]

If you want to know what this is like, go draw a bath and turn a radio on in the bathroom. Place the radio on the counter, get in the bath, and then duck your head underneath the surface of the water. See how muffled things are? You can still hear, but man, if you hum, or breathe deeply, or anything else, you drown out the sounds around you. For example, I can only hear the clacking of my keyboard if I really concentrate and line it up with what I know to expect of that sound as my hands actuate keys.

I have the feeling that I’m going to go slowly crazy this weekend.

I have finished wielding my scythe. I have no unread items. Now, to explain why no more FL and why NNW for now. I’ll do that later; for now, it’s time for more medication for my ear! [It seems to finally be improving, which is nice, because ... it's been painful.] I think I’m going to miss home hockey, though, for the first time in forever. [Shut up, Mike. I don't want to hear it.]

I still feel like a big sack of crap—to the point that I came home from work early today because I was dizzy and didn’t want to drive home in traffic—but I got everything done that I needed to get done. I did get the nice ego boost of someone saying, “I felt like my left arm was gone without you here yesterday,” combined with a co-worker all-but-happily-tackling me when I walked past his door this morning. It’s nice to be wanted and to feel like you’re an integral part of an organization, to be sure.

[And yes, I say it organIzation, like I'm from Mississauga or something.]

That said, I have felt like doing not much of anything since getting home; after some sleep to knock down the pain/dizziness, I woke up sweaty—why the hell are we pushing 80F in the last week of November? Please explain—just in time for my next medication run. Woooo. The wick still annoys the hell out of me, but it’s getting better. Part of the issue right now is swelling [from irritation] in the area behind and under my ear, which I’m treating with heat. [I just looked it up on WebMD, and maybe I should be doing that with cold. Dammit. But it feels better.] I’ll stay awake until as close to midnight as I can, take the next round of drops, and crash. [I'm so in polyphasic sleep right now, heh.]

In other news, I’ve whittled my new-item backlog in NNW down to 3003. The reason that my migration is taking a long time is because I’m having to switch from FeedLounge’s superior tag-cloud-style filing system for feeds back to a tree-like structure. I will be very, very, very honest: not wanting to leave a tag-cloud system kept me on FL for the last … six-to-eight weeks. When I first found out that Alex was leaving FeedLounge—okay, actually before it was public, back when I was spending time talking to both Alex and Scott on the phone about it, agreeing with how both of them felt about the situation [probably much to their consternation, heh]—I made some preliminary looks to moving, and everything told me that I wanted to stay with what I’d been using.

But … well, at some point, the features of actually, oh, getting your feeds to actually aggregate trump everything else. Tonight, I found that one of my RMFO-Bloggers had 15 spammy comments that were just sitting there, all because FL hadn’t been aggregating his comment feed for me.

So anyway … the transition to a tag-style architecture to a tree is a slow one. Essentially, what I’ve done with every feed I’ve cleared so far is put it into a lowest-common-denominator group in NNW, which has typically been firstname_lastname. I will, at some point in the future, begin organically grouping these folks back into trees. [I've actually started with all the RMFO-Blogs feeds that I follow.] Essentially, I’ve gotten back to a flat structure, which I’ll then go back to treeing.

Good gracious, when are more people going to start supporting tag-style architectures? It may be a hard problem—I honestly don’t know—but it makes so, so, so much sense. Kottke.org’s remaindered links? I want those in “jason_kottke” and “linklog”, because sometimes I feel like perusing all the linklogs I follow, and sometimes, I want just Jason’s editorial voice. The same way with groups of my friends—I want Jonathan and Ashley in both “cabal” and “creekmores”, because sometimes I want to catch up with all my friends, and sometimes, I just want to know about what’s going on down the road from me. And best of all, I want my Bruins-related feeds from boston.com in “boston”, “bruins”, “hockey”, “nhl”, and “sports”, depending on what mood I’m in. [Why the bifurcation of "hockey" and "nhl"? Hell, I follow and eat/live/breathe college hockey, people.]

When one first encounters tag-style architectures, it seems a bit much, but so can treeing … you can get very, very specific with trees. Why do I prefer tag-style architectures? They slice horizontally and vertically.

So anyway, incoherent rambling over. I’m suck it up with going away from tag-style. I’m in mourning, but not enough to switch back. Right now, I’m fixing everything in NNW, essentially doing all my feed-reading at home [which is fine, because I'm busy at work], and then hoping to go to FeedDemon soon and have this setup all completely done so the OPML import into FD is a thing of simplicity when I’m ready for it.