My mind has been wandering more since Halloween.  It’s not unusual for it to wander, but it would seem only right for it to leave an itinerary, a phone number, agree to be home by midnight, or at least leave me a sticky note somewhere.  This is definitely not astral projection.  It comes much closer to a mixture of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD,) my usual chronic depression, and “THE HOLIDAYS!”  I don’t do well with the holidays, and there seem to be more of them as I grow older.  The time span that is included in the Holiday Season seems to be getting longer, also.

The age factor appears to be significant to me as I now obviously have more of a past than I do of a future.  Duh.  Brilliant observation, huh?  But when one thinks about the normal aging process (especially if one is a shrink) and of life as it changes with age, some things may not be so obvious as they might appear at first.  I’m certain that my observations apply most accurately to me and may not generalize to others.

• I expect to have a bad time from a Halloween through the end of January, therefore I behave as if this will be true and the self-fulfilling prophesy becomes so.
• This time of year is generally cold, dreary, and holds little of interest to me in the area of sports entertainment or outdoor activity.
• My short term memory is beginning to show slight signs of impairment.  Nothing dramatic, really, but forgetfulness, distraction, occasional lack of concentration, and the inability to multitask well are noticeably different.
• The obverse of the loss of short term memory is an increasing preoccupation with the past.  This is a two edged sword.  I remember many times that I was happy in the past, but I also have many more losses to remember than I did when I was 20 or 30.  Holiday dinners and family events are attended by ghosts.  I am uncertain whether my recently found interest in genealogy is emotionally good or bad for me.
• I have made it a point to deliberately forget or suppress my deceased loved ones dates of birth and death so that I don’t feel the sorrow at those times.  That works fairly well when it is combined with deliberately thinking of loving memories of those who have passed when they come to mind as long as it isn’t associated with a date that is impossible to forget, like a holiday.  Association with a date that one is constantly reminded of does not allow this method to work nearly as well, and the reminders are not under my direct control.
• The anticipatory distress starts earlier, with Halloween, Daylight Saving Time, and the beginning of the sales of Christmas decorations.
• The ghosts gather for Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, my birthday, my wife’s death exactly one week later, and Valentine’s Day.  The whole notion of having another birthday that puts me a year closer to the grave doesn’t please me greatly, either.  Thus, my Holiday season has expanded to three and a half months, at least for the purposes of intrusive, depressive memories.

Other, more esoteric factors also contribute to my antipathy regarding the Holidays and the “proper spirit” that is expected to go with them.  I’m still crabby as hell for a few months, but I know why, and that helps more than most other treatment forms in coping with the season.

Peace, Doc

Copyright © 2008, Thomas A. Blood, Ph.D.

“'Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?'
'That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat.
'I don't much care where --' said Alice.
'Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat.
'--so long as I get somewhere,' Alice added as an explanation.” - Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

*

I have been so terribly busy with all the preparations I have been making for our Thanksgiving celebration that I must confess to the lack of preparation of a new Thanksgiving post.  Just pretend that it is Friday and that you are savoring the best of my leftover TG posts:

Thanksgiving 1988

When Annie and I were newly married, we had a traditional Thanksgiving dinner with all six offspring present. The oldest was in her young teens, so formal attire consisted of wearing at least a tee shirt and something from the waist down. Jacket, tie, and socks were not required. If they had been, none of us would have been allowed to eat. Holiday rules were in effect, however, which meant that launching mashed potatoes at another diner with one’s spoon or making a sibling laugh so hard that milk sprayed out through their nose were forbidden activities. This was somewhat different from the usual meal as my two children and I were still relatively new in the family, and the mood was just a bit more subdued than usual.

The required prayer of thanksgiving was said and Annie had the group circle the table in telling for what they were most thankful. She started with thanks for being a family and all being together for the meal. Various children were thankful for the good meal, a warm home, a better situation than two years earlier, doing well in school, and the like. Until they got to me.

Before I tell you what I was thankful for you need to know that we never, as a family, bought a pet. We rescued them, we took breeders’ “returns,” older dogs, and such. Jasun was an American/Canadian Champion Samoyed who had outlived his show days and even his days at stud. We took him from our friends who were his breeder to be the “pasture” to which he retired. He was an extremely friendly old dog and waited patiently in the three-season porch just outside the dining room, for the turkey morsels that everyone was told not to give him, and which everyone, of course, did.

When the “thankful for’s” got around to me, I quietly stated that I was thankful for Jasun’s ears. When everyone was looking at me, believing me to either to have fallen off the wagon or gone completely over the edge, I explained. Jasun was old and deserved all the pleasure he could get. He loved to have his furry, teddy bear ears rubbed. I liked to give pleasure when I could and loved the feel of those inviting ears. I further explained how this was a win-win situation where we both got pleasure from the same interaction and therefore, I was thankful for it. It has been a long time and I don’t know if any of the kids even remember the statement, but they understood it at the time.

This year I am alone for Thanksgiving except for the two little boys in fur coats that share my home with me. My plan is to get some special treats and a couple of frozen turkey dinners when I go shopping later today. On Thursday, after I put a fall wreath on Annie’s grave, there will be turkey and ear rubbing for all, and thankfulness that we are together.

Peace, Doc

Copyright © T. A. Blood, Ph.D. 2005

“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.” - John Fitzgerald Kennedy

“Nothing is more honorable than a grateful heart.” – Seneca

I have compulsively planned for events in my life over which I believed I could exert some control.  In retrospective contemplation, however, I find that most of the really interesting and memorable experiences have happened seemingly by chance or accident.  Professionally, this evaluation and planning has been a necessity in order to gauge with my clients what factors in their recovery would be most influential and to identify those which were either unproductive or counterproductive.  To have done less, I felt, would have been unethical, negligent, or both.

In my private life, either fortunately or unfortunately, the same has applied.  I believe that this desire to know, as close to a certainty as possible, had its start in childhood.  With a friend, I discovered the ignition point of alcohol to be much lower than we had believed by boiling it in a test tube, setting fire to the floor joists overhead in his basement, and being quiet enough in our panic not to alert his mother who was working in the next room.  At about age nine, I discovered that it was not a good idea to remove a live skunk from a trap even though Uncle Barney said I could do it, thus differentiating between could and should.  I continued on this course, thinking farther and farther ahead, throughout my life.  From electronics understanding, design, to building (crystal radio to Heathkits to preamplifiers for Grass and Beckman polygraph equipment for myself and others.)  I progressed from building, collecting, prizes in contests, to a small business with model cars.   From “saving my pennies and saving my dimes” to get my 409, I progressed through a decrepit Vespa, to a new Cushman scooter (quickly modified to do well over 70 mph,) to a few clunkers for transportation, all the while designing, building, improving, and drag racing a successful C/G Model A Ford.  There are many more examples, but I don’t want to wander too far off my subject.

By the time I went to college, I expected to be a doctor (instilled in me since age three) but I didn’t particularly want to be a typical MD or surgeon.  Cutting pieces off or out of people, having people bleed or ooze on me, and my near total inability to comprehend organic chemistry played a large part in this.  The choices of career paths I was contemplating, I realized, had a central “I gots ta’ know” element in common.  Psychologist, CIA Intel, detective, some sort of research, etc., were all in the brew.  Academic life became much easier after my family decided that a clinical psychologist would be “Dr. Blood,” and therefore, quite acceptable to them.  I had spent nearly two years trying to figure out a gentle way to break the news to them that I didn’t want to be a physician.  *sigh*  Following that trauma, the BA and MA in psychology, and the Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology were, relatively speaking, fun.  I was finally choosing (for the most part) what I wanted to study, and that made a tremendous difference to me.

OK, we’ve gotten this far and he still hasn’t mentioned chance, randomness, or accidental life experiences.  Boo!  Hiss!  While believing essentially in a cause and effect world, I realized that I could never possibly know all the causes producing a particular outcome nor could I possibly know all the ripple effects of any action of mine, either good or bad.  It was not so much that they were unknowable as it was that I would not be able to know them.  That pissed me off and led me eventually to the position of a “teleological cognitive-behaviorist” with a number of side trips and dents in my brain from other schools of philosophy, psychology, and theology. 

Both of the women I married were met in totally unplanned situations.  Which graduate school I entered was not the one which had pre-admitted me, but another, for which I am very thankful.  The internship I was chosen for couldn’t have been better, as was the hospital position I accepted which “didn’t exist” when I went for an informational interview.  The course of my career moves within the hospital over a period of 30 years generally felt either random or controlled by forces over which I had little or no control.   Urinating on a fox while backpacking on Isle Royale was certainly not planned, but led to much learning and investigating the conditions that placed us in the peculiar situation in which such an occurrence could result.  A bone cyst which occurred when I was about twelve was surgically repaired after breaking my arm three times in the same place.  Once again something over which I had no foreknowledge and very little control most definitely shaped my future.  The condition precluded my participation in any contact sport and resulted in my current disinterest in any college or professional sports.  That alone channeled my interests and pursuits in a different direction (and likely explains, in part, my impaired ability to be a “team player.”)  The same injury also led indirectly to my becoming a pacifist.  I was an easy target when the middle school bully insulted me in a most embarrassing manner, and I immediately tried to kill him.  All logical thought left and I tried to choke him to death (yes, one really does “see red”) and I recall none of the incident until I was removed from him by others.  I really didn’t see that event coming, but it further shaped my future behavior and thought processes.  In particular, I must control that demon from ever emerging again.  I am now able to become appropriately angry, and my demon hasn’t been detected in 50 years.

There are many, many more examples of events, unexpected and beyond our control, having minor to truly dramatic effects upon our behavior, thoughts, beliefs, and lives.  We all have them to some degree.  One of the effects my background has had on me is that I try to plan and prepare for things that are important to me, often to the point that I never actually do the planned for thing.  That degree of pre-planning is not healthy and since my nearly complete retirement, I have been working on it.  I know that I “should” live more in the moment and appreciate my surroundings.  Beyond such necessities as finances, groceries, apartment care, and remembering to get the mail, I should be more able to live in the now.  I am currently planning to do more of that in local forested areas and wetlands after the winter, photographing critters and just enjoying the moment and the surroundings.  I have enough projects and interests to use my time quite pleasantly, which may prove problematic if I let them take precedence over being more aware of what exists unnoticed by me.  I would be receptive to any of my readers’ suggestions or reminders to get outside and appreciate my world when more pleasant weather returns.

Oblivious steps

Unsuspected gardens there

Trodden but unseen

Peace, Doc

Copyright © 2008, Thomas A. Blood, Ph.D.

“The perception of beauty is a moral test.” - Henry David Thoreau

Those of you who have tolerated my recent musings about where I fit into the overall scheme of the universe will likely understand why these two lines of poetry have nipped at my heels for most of my life.  They have done so since my late teens because the same question has existed since that time.  It has mutated into various forms, speculations, manners of expression and thought, and contexts, but it remains essentially the same.

“… I, a stranger and afraid

In a world I never made. … “ 

I believe that these words have remained with me because they touch a core issue in my existence and my personality.  They can be grokked as something from Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land, but they are not from that source.  I finally recalled that they were from something by A. E. Houseman, and from there, found the original poem, a part of a larger collection, Last Poems, number XII, The laws of God, the laws of man:

“The laws of God, the laws of man,
He may keep that will and can;
Not I: let God and man decree
Laws for themselves and not for me;
And if my ways are not as theirs
Let them mind their own affairs.
Their deeds I judge and much condemn,
Yet when did I make laws for them?
Please yourselves, say I, and they
Need only look the other way.
But no, they will not; they must still
Wrest their neighbour to their will,
And make me dance as they desire
With jail and gallows and hell-fire.
And how am I to face the odds
Of man's bedevilment and God's?
I, a stranger and afraid
In a world I never made.
They will be master, right or wrong;
Though both are foolish, both are strong.
And since, my soul, we cannot fly
To Saturn nor to Mercury,
Keep we must, if keep we can,
These foreign laws of God and man.”

I suppose I still don’t deal all that well with authority.

Peace, Doc

Copyright © 2008, Thomas A. Blood, Ph.D.

Do any of you remember the old party game Heavy, Heavy, Hangs Over Thy Head?  I don’t either, but it seemed like a good title for this post.  I’m not quite certain why the eight-unit apartment buildings in this complex were designed as they were, but there are many things in life about which I am uncertain.  This particular concern held quite a low priority on my list of things to actively worry about.  It seemed odd to me that the upstairs units all have their heat (or cooling) vents located in the ceilings.  It seemed to me that it would have been a more efficient design to have all the venting between floors, such that vents were on the floor in the upstairs units and in the ceilings on the ground floor units.

I didn’t give this any further thought until the weather turned cold again and I found that the heat was blowing down directly on my head.  Then the warm air seemed to dry my eyes to the point it bothered me.  This was certainly not unbearable, but it was a bit irritating.  I should mention that my beloved recliner chair in the living room is located directly beneath one of the two vents that heat over half the apartment.  Actually, most of what passes for decor here is based upon the location of the chair.  When I developed conjunctivitis, the small irritation became painful.  Pain is an effective motivator to change for me, so I decided that something needed to be done. 

Had this been in my home workshop (when I owned a house,) the problem would have been quickly resolved with cardboard and duct tape, as it had been several times before.  I suppose I could have designed an artsy sort of device to accomplish the task without getting myself evicted, but I chose the easy way out.   And so it occurred that the next time I was in a hardware department, I looked for an air deflector and found a cheap, clear plastic, “unbreakable” one.  It is the sort that is used on floor vents to route the air out into the room from behind draperies or to maximize the airflow in the direction one feel it is most needed. 

So far, so good, but I don’t believe that the manufacturer had ceiling mounting in mind when the product was designed.  At least there were no pictures on the box illustrating such an installation.  With a bit of tweaking and prying of magnets, I produced a unit that would remain attached to the vent over my head and actually accomplish my mission of redirecting the air in a more acceptable path.  I was quite pleased with myself for solving the problem for under $3.00, and for attaching it to the metal rim of the vent without falling off the arms of the chair.  It is even located slightly behind the chair such that it would not hit me if it fell while I was sitting. 

Aye!  Therein lies the rub.  Please recall that the chair is a recliner model.  The first time I lay back, I discovered the flaw in my design.  In the reclined position, the deflector is located precisely over my face.  It will await its chance in seeming innocence.  I am sure of this.  It only has to bide its time before I forget and fall asleep in the reclined position.  Then it will somehow manipulate the strength of its magnetic field, fall, and bonk me on the head more accurately than a smart-bomb.  It’s waiting.  It’s only a matter of time.

Peace, Doc

Copyright © 2008, Thomas A. Blood, Ph.D.

“The design of good houses requires an understanding of both the construction materials and the behavior of real humans.” - Peter Morville, 2002

This seems to be the opinion of many tech authors recently.  I will base this post on a single article which summarizes better in five paragraphs, than I could in several posts, that which we may expect:

“Microsoft: We’re Sorry, but We’ll Make it Up to You.”

This is the title of an October 28, 2008 article in The Pit Blog section of PC Pitstop’s Tech Talk.  This short article is a very relevant summary from what Microsoft Senior Vice President Steve Sinofsky had to say to attendees of the recent Microsoft Professional Developer Conference.  Ms. Julie Larson-Green then presented the first public demonstration of the Microsoft 7 user interface.

When Mr. Sinofsky took the stage on Tuesday, he was “willing to confess some past sins with Vista.”   The demonstration showed how Microsoft intends to change Windows 7 to fix the problems that exist in Vista, and indeed in earlier versions of Windows.  “Even Microsoft can’t hide or ignore the cold reception that Vista has received.”  I refer the reader to the original article, both for specifics and for the 322 responses to it.

From this article and several other sources, it appears that Microsoft 7 will have its public release late in 2009 or early 2010.  A pre-beta version will be/has been given to the conference attendees mentioned above and a feature-complete public beta version is to be available early next year (2009.)  The final product reportedly will be shipped “approximately three years after the general availability of Vista.”  Meanwhile, full support of Windows XP continues.  This article is only one of many I have seen recently.  When you read it, be sure to note how little processor speed and RAM Microsoft 7 requires to run on a tiny netbook.

Shortly before I wrote this post, DaNiece, the notorious “al,” sent me the following MS error messages.  Possibly she has some advance knowledge of Microsoft 7 and knows it will be bringing back the “blue screen of death.”

Error Messages You Don't Want to See

An error has occurred - Could be anything, really.
Three things are certain:  Death, taxes, and lost data.  Guess which has occurred?
Error:  An unspecified error has occurred. Please correct the error to continue.
Having been erased, the document you were working on must now be retyped.
Erroneous error - Nothing is wrong.
The website you are looking for cannot be located, but doubtless others exist.
Access denied - Nah nah na na nah nah!
Out of memory - It happens to us all eventually.
Illegal error detected - You are not allowed to make this error.
Your computer has performed an illegal operation. The police have been informed.
Printer not ready. Could be a fatal error. Have you a pen handy?
Windows has detected that there is no keyboard present. Hit F1 to continue.
Yesterday it worked.  Today it is not working.  Windows is like that.
Windows loaded - System in danger.
Unable to exit Windows.  Try the door.
Fatal system error:  Press F13 to continue...
Windows has just crashed.  You are looking at the Blue Screen of Death.  No one hears your screams.

Peace, Doc

Copyright © 2008, Thomas A. Blood, Ph.D.

Taken somewhat out of context:  “But a flashy new interface is a red flag that this is a new bit of software to learn, and that triggers what the big boss here calls the “primal fear of software.” It’s one thing to get it installed and working; it’s another to actually grind through the process of learning to use it.” - Chris Bucholtz, Microsoft Dynamics, March 20, 2008

Addendum:  For those that may believe that I am unfairly “picking on” Vista, I probably am.  I am expressing a personal preference.  I presently have a 64-bit Quad Core PC on the floor of the living room.  It has Vista Home Premium 64-bit pre-installed on its hard drive but has never been fully installed/expanded/updated, etc.  Instead I purchased a Seagate 1TB drive on which XP Pro will be installed and which I will continue to use as long as it is supported or until Windows 7 proves itself.  I will keep the current Vista-loaded hard drive and possibly use it at a time when a “Windows 7 upgrade” becomes available.  I feel that this may also reflect the state of the economy and the unpopularity of Vista, given a very recent sale by Tiger Direct which offered a free Seagate 500 GB hard drive with the purchase of Vista Ultimate (32-bit or 64-bit editions) for a total price of $189.99.  ‘Nuff said.

I am singularly unenthusiastic about blogging this evening.  I have diagnosed myself as having somehow contracted conjunctivitis (pinkeye.)  Initially, only my right eye was affected, but as I reflexively started rubbing it I managed to spread it to both eyes.  It began on Wednesday and I could think of nothing that had changed in my environment (despite the cats’ occasional walk across me) so I decided it was not an allergic form.  No other symptoms accompanied the itching, painful, dry, and occasionally blurry feelings in my eyes, so I ruled out its being a side- or secondary-effect of some other disorder. 

That left either bacterial or viral causes for it.  The only sources I can think of where I might have become infected are the voting machine or the handle of the grocery cart that I used shopping on my way home from the polling place.  I believe that the latter is a much more likely source.  I nearly wore out the medical reference sites before reaching my diagnosis.  I just didn’t know that old farts got pinkeye.  So I guess I’ll just practice sterile procedures for a few days and it will go away.  The only moment of pre-panic was waking up Friday morning with my eyelashes glued together.  You younger readers should get used to hearing this sort of thing.  The older one gets, the more medical terms and reasons for using them enter their vocabularies and conversations.

Below is a picture of the original Doc Blood, my grandfather, for whom this blog was named.  I have many better shots, but presently this is the only one on the computer, and I am not disposed to find the disk or re-scan the originals.

Doc Blood, circa 1907

It’s strange how someone I never talked to could have had such a great influence on my life.  He died when I was three.  The stories from the collective memories of all my family and others who knew him, leave me with memories that are not original with me but are just as real, nonetheless.  There I go, living in the past again.  This time it’s only a bit over 100 years.

Peace, Doc

Copyright © 2008, Thomas A. Blood, Ph.D.

“Compare and contrast the following two statements. Your solutions must be legible, understandable by all ages of voters, and not cost more than 10% of the GDP. More importantly, voters must think that they are getting the best health care that they can get.

1. The question of human welfare is not an economic question. It is a moral question.... Men are not doing as well as they can with what they have. Calvin Coolidge, 1921
2. I think we have reached a stage in our civilization when we must accept as a major premise that citizens should have an equal opportunity for health as an inherent right with the right of liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Surgeon General Thomas Parran 1937” – from the Family Practice Quotes of the Century page on The World of Rural Medical Education website.

After wandering off into one of the dustier sulci of my prefrontal cortex, where the synaptic junctions are few and far between, in my last post, I thought I would present the same theoretical assertion in a more visual form.  Duh, I can unnerstan’ it better with pitchurs.  This is somewhat close what was in my mind when I was contemplating “something from nothing” in my previous post:

Artist Adolf Schaller’s view of the early formation of the universe.  NASA Marshall Space Flight Center.

This is closer to what I was envisioning by the time the headache began.  I had somewhat lowered my expectations:

After seeking the root cause, Dilbert’s illusion of free will is destroyed.

By the time I had taken my medications and pretty much given up on finding any answers, at least for this week, I began to think that the following was as likely as any other answer to my question:

If any of you wish to make a paper ceiling cat, you may find the pattern here and the development and Catheological ramifications of ceiling cat worship here.

Peace, Doc

Copyright © 2008, Thomas A. Blood, Ph.D.

"Thousands of years ago, cats were worshipped as gods. Cats have never forgotten this." --Anonymous

I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve been somewhat confused and cranky for the past week or so.  Maybe longer, as in all of my adult life.  The latest thing to bother me, however, is my conclusion that we, as a species, cannot create anything.  We can only use the leftovers of creation.  We can most certainly rearrange these leavings to accomplish new things, from putting heat and wood together and making a fire, to attempting, at CERN, to reproduce the conditions existing at the moment the universe was born.  This is one of the main attributes that separates man from “lower” species.  But we have not made anything new. 

We are quite an inventive lot, however.  The discovery of the physical principle of the wheel to convincing four of them to accelerate from 0 mph to over 300 mph in 1000 feet required many centuries.  Discovering the existence of the atom to developing weapons with the potential of ending all life on earth required much less time.  Still, we have not made anything, just rearranged matter and energy already in existence.  

The closest we can claim to creating anything, I believe, is with our minds.  But they were given to us, if you will, when we were created.  Many of us would point to the process of conception through childbirth as a miracle.  Without being too crass, what did we do except have a good time, at the right time, to make it happen?  That is still not creation in the sense to which I refer.  All the “parts,” “components,” and “systems” were already present.  In vivo, in vitro, cloning, genetic engineering, and the even the construction of new species all seem like creation, but again, all the elements necessary to accomplish the end result already existed.  Einstein would have told us that matter can neither be created nor destroyed.  Its form may be changed with the addition or subtraction of existent energy, but nothing has been “created from scratch.”  From whatever direction I approach the end question, I arrive at the same conclusion.  What many call God, the Greater Power, the Prime Mover, or many other names exists, or at very least, existed at the moment of the beginning. 

I can neither prove nor disprove this assertion.  I find little or no inconsistency between evolution and creationism except the way in which words are used or misused, and how they are interpreted.  Where does this thought process leave me?  It leaves this old Doubting Thomas confused and with a headache.  I believe that the appropriate religious term for this condition would be Agnostic, deriving from the Greek prefix gnosis, or not knowing.  I would love to know the answer, to reach closure, to arrive at some finality, but I would never willingly give up that doubting, searching part of myself that asks the tough questions.  Trying to know the unknowable may be a bit frustrating at times, though.

Carrion eaters

Warm rays from a dying Sun

Always entropy

Peace, Doc

Copyright © 2008, Thomas A. Blood, Ph.D.

“Lives have been altered in fundamental ways, and later, after they acquire a more complete understanding of what goals are actually attainable, many are left facing a lot of pain and frustration. And yet, there's no culture of complaint.” - Garry Trudeau