Stress Hardiness, Optimizing Stress, Being Fully Alive

cheerfulmonk. Creative Commons license.

 
Things are about to happen up on the land. The fellow who is doing our road work plans to start filling in some of the big washouts and fixing up the culverts tomorrow. If all goes well he will be there tomorrow through Monday. Originally he planned to do the work a couple of weeks ago but he couldn’t get the backhoe because the driver who brings it up from Albuquerque broke his arm.

Tomorrow Andy will meet with the architect and contractor to discuss what needs to be done on the house, shed and well house. The contractor hopes to start on the well house and shed Monday. There was some talk about signing the contract for the house tomorrow, so we asked for a copy of the final plans. It turns out the architect still hasn’t put in all the of changes we made since last October. Somehow I’m not surprised.

What did surprise me was a request from the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, to include the above cartoon in a book entitled A Complaint Free World. Well sure. It already has a Creative Commons license, but for non-commercial purposes. One of my mottos is “Find what you love to do and find a way to share it with others.” I love the internet for making that easy to do.

Any surprises in your life lately?

The main thing that has happened up on the land recently is Andy has been clearing out dead trees and cutting them into pieces. The hope is if the workmen ever come back they will haul them away for firewood.

When people ask Andy how it is going he says, “It’s imminent. And it has been for the past six weeks.” Even he is starting to get impatient. We’ve now lost six weeks of great weather and passable roads. The story has been the contractor is working on getting quotes, but now Andy is ready to start pushing a bit. We’ll have to see how it goes.

In the meantime we received an email from the kitchen designer saying the prices for the cabinets will go up 2% on June 1st. She now has a new supplier for the counter tops and doesn’t think the prices will change that much–she will check when we’re ready to sign a contract. I’m not sure how we can get a firm bid from the contractor without little pieces of information like that, but to quote one of our favorite sayings, “They didn’t ask me.” I’m staying out of it. I’ve got enough to do learning how to use new techniques in Photoshop. It’s more fun than waiting for other people.

Is there anything imminent in your life right now?

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According to Will Rogers this is the before-election promise season. After the election it will be the alibi season, where the winners explain why they can’t keep their promises. (Hint, it’s the other guys’ fault.)

Peggy Noonan, who was a speech writer and Special Assistant to President Reagan, says politicians are bound to disappoint. They can’t help it. It’s just the way they are.

Even with my cynical view of politics, I was still surprised by Stanley Bing’s column in this month’s Fortune Magazine. Stanley Bing is his pen name. He’s also a business executive and mostly his end-page columns are humorous. Not this month. It’s entitled “Recovery Blues” and after Bing bemoans the current state of the economy he writes

And then there’s the entire political situation, whatever that is. The way I look at it, there are two possibilities. The Republicans could take over in November, leading to tax legislation that would favor those who have money over those who don’t and a host of regressive measures that would be good for business. Or the President could triumph, leading to four more years of an obstructionist Congress that would block any attempts at sensible regulation and economic reform, which will be good for business.

So why do I feel as if I may have left the stove on and I’m miles from home?

Whether or not Bing is correct, I was surprised to read that in pro-business Fortune. What do you think? Do you think Bing is unduly pessimistic?

Ed Stein, gocomics.com
For larger image click on picture.
 

Do you ever get the feeling the world is like the Titanic, about to experience a great catastrophe? Do you agree with Sir Cadogan in Harry Potter?

Have a stout heart, the worst is yet to come.

I sometimes feel that way, but I was also frightened when I was a kid by the threat of nuclear war with the U.S.S.R. I can still remember the feeling of terror after watching a public service announcement on TV. It vividly showed what an attack would be like.

That particular threat is long gone, of course, so who knows what the future will bring? It doesn’t make much sense to be like the woman in these cartoons, ruining the present moment worrying about things we have no control over.

Stone Soup, gocomics.com. For larger image click on picture.
 

Stone Soup, gocomics.com. For larger image click on picture.

 
What do you think?

 
I’ve been spending a lot of time the past few days doing research on charities that support some of my favorite causes. In the past the charities would send me reminders each year and I would send them checks. This past year I’ve been putting them off because of the mess recovering from the fire up on the land and the two months I was laid low by that virus. I decided it was time to take action and that it would be easiest to do them all at once online.

In the process I started thinking about one of the groups. They talk a good talk, but they send me a lot of junk with more appeals for money throughout the year. So I looked them up on Charity Navigator which gave it their top rating of four stars, and it was also a Better Business Bureau accredited charity. That reaffirmed my belief the organization wasn’t a scam, but was it the best use of my money? So I looked at the details on Charity Navigator.

This is how the group uses the money:
 

Charity Navigator told me about other groups doing similar work, and I ended up switching to a smaller group that spends the money this way:
 

I think my money will do more good now. Bless Charity Navigator! (I gave them a small donation too. Click on the following logo to access their site. )

Do you have favorite causes you support? If so how do you decide?

Click on picture for larger view.
 

Click on picture for larger view.
 

Click on picture for larger view.
 

Click on picture for larger view.
 

Click on picture for larger view.

 
We woke up Tuesday morning to eight inches of snow, which was already starting to melt. As you can see from the drought map, we can use the precipitation, especially if it’s not a gully washer that washes out the roads up in the mountains. Our April shower may be different from the usual variety, but we’ll take it gladly.

Do you have April showers where you are?

 
It’s been a great week. I’m getting my energy back after that bug I had and I’ve been learning a lot and getting a lot done. I thought things were going great until I stepped on the scale. I lost two more pounds. I checked with my Wii Fit and I’ve slipped into being underweight. Clearly my system needs a bit of fine tuning.

I keep telling Andy that life is too complicated, it’s impossible to keep track of everything. It’s meant as a joke, but do you ever feel that way?

It’s been a full week. I’ve been playing with my new iPad, of course, and have been doing a little sketching every day. Then because I’m still having trouble with dizziness, I decided to dig out my Wii Fit to work on my balance. I hadn’t used it in over three years, but it thinks my balance is still great. That was a big surprise, but it may be that with my chronic eyestrain I’ve had plenty of dizziness in my life and automatically compensate for it.

At any rate, I’ve set the Wii Fit up in the living room where it’s easy to use, and I’m starting to use it a little every day. It’s been on my mind for a while, so that’s a good feeling.

So things were going swimmingly until yesterday when I decided to phone tech support for the super fancy Roku XS (for watching movies) I bought last October. For some reason it decided not to let me look at Netflix, even though my first very simple one still worked just fine. Hours and hours and seven technicians later–both yesterday and today–it’s working again. It was outside its warranty period, so I had to do most of the support via online chat rather than talking to someone in person, and there were times I wondered if I really cared that much. After all, my simple one still worked and if it decided to go belly up I could always buy the simplest version they had. Just value my time and toss the troublesome one out.

Well, no. That didn’t feel right. I thought it was broken and wanted them to know it. Instead they finally got it working and I learned a lot in the process. Was it worth it? Yes. I value knowledge and am willing to pay for it.

I am impressed that the company provided so much support. Some of the technicians were better than others, of course, but they kept trying and didn’t give up. That means a lot to me, so in spite of the hassle I’m now a loyal customer.

That said, I’m glad the ordeal is over and now I can focus on something a bit easier–our income tax. Life is just one fun thing after another.

 

 

 

 
They were busy replacing a beam and some posts this week. Presumably they will now stain the posts and replace our railing. A downstairs neighbor cheerfully said, “Well, I see you haven’t fallen off the porch yet!”

Unfortunately, the floor of the porch sags more than the roof did, so we’re expecting they’ll eventually replace the posts below us. We’ll just have to see.

In the meantime I’ve been spending time learning to sketch— I’ll write more about that over at Cheerful Monk this Sunday. And Apple sent me a notice that my iPad should arrive tomorrow. Fun stuff here. What about you?

 
The above picture of our porch was taken Monday morning with my iPod. The picture below highlights the three jacks that the maintenance men installed after pondering the roof beam for a while.
 

 
The next day the two guys came back with Joe, our contractor, and they pondered the beam for a while longer. We haven’t seen anyone since. Presumably in the fullness of time they will do something, and presumably they think we’re safe since they haven’t condemned the building. I will keep you posted.

Tuesday Andy and I went to Santa Fe for the first time in months. It looks as if I’ve just about recovered from that stupid bug.

And yesterday, Wednesday, March 7th. That’s the day Apple unveiled the new iPad. It has the same retinal display that I love on my iPod, and I’ve been using that more and more, so I had decided just that morning that in the fullness of time I would also try the iPad.

As it turns out they started taking pre-orders that very day for shipping on March 16th. I decided what the heck, I might as well join the crowd and put myself on the list. The website had problems but I kept trying, and once when I tried phoning they were so jammed they weren’t even putting people on hold at that time. They simply weren’t trying to answer. The second time I phoned I was put on hold but managed to finish my purchase on the website and hung up. I could have waited, of course, but it was an easy adventure. That evening the news said that 55 million of us had ordered that day. [Update: i just looked at the iPad sales figures for last year. That number is way too high, but there were a bunch of us.] Mostly I avoid crowds, but not this one.

How eventful was your week?