05-23-2026 — Life is a pain

Howdy all. Just another rainy day. Except, it really did rain. Maybe an inch since last night. The bird bath filled up. It is also another windy day. Gusts pushing 45 mph at the peak in last 2 hours, but lots of gusts from 30-40 mph for the day.

The fence is soaked a deeper brown/gray. As are the raised beds in front of it. But look at all the green plant leaves. Garden is happy.

The winds actually started yesterday, when it was still sunny off and on. My neighbor put up his first 250th anniversary, American flag, on the light pole out front. He said he was going to put one on every pole on the street. I think it is a cool idea.

I will likely hang my American flag on the house tomorrow. After the winds settle. And I have a few 250th little garden flags/poles that I'll put out in the front flower beds too.

An interesting “health” item. Lately, my resting heart rate has been reported in the low 60s BPM by the Apple Watch. That’s really good for an obese old man. But yesterday, I got this reporting.

The 109 was when I was outside doing something, and the 41 is just the watch not sitting right on my wrist. It happens a lot when I am typing and the wrist is on the desk, and the watch sensor is off/on against the skin. I’ve confirmed it by having another monitor on the other hand and simulating typing with the watch hand. Today, it is sitting at a resting rate of 61.

Also on the “health” side of things, I’ve been having lower back?/upper hip?/fat-flab? sharp pains on my left side for the last couple of weeks. Jumping out of bed without thinking about it, often has me bent over leaning on stuff, wishing I had a brain!! Nasty pain. And while I know it will hurt if I bend and twist at the same time, it is when it hurts doing simple, silly things, that bugs me most. Like the other morning, I got out of bed, and was glad it wasn’t hurting at all, and did my bathroom routines, and went to get dressed. I was getting ready to slip on my jeans, and lifted the left foot about 2 inches, and got stabbed in the back!!! Ouch.

Getting old sucks/blows/bites all at the same time! The pain has happened in the past, and will go away as soon as I quit aggravating it for a few days. Then I can get back to just my feet/ankles and knees and shoulders and thumbs hurting.

My, 3 years older, brother sent a chat this morning that he took a stumble/fall 2 days ago and found himself face first into his driveway. Busted up his glasses, gouging his face, and breaking his nose in two places, along with fracturing his knee, and re-injuring some ribs. Ended up in ER. Fortunately???, his Apple watch noticed the fall and called 911 for him. He wasn’t getting up. They came for him with an ambulance. I’m glad he is as okay as he ended up. He’ll have to keep leg/knee immobilized for 6 weeks, and then physical therapy again. Not a good time, if there can be such a time for this, as they are in the process of setting up a new home site, and need to sell the existing one.

‍A little less horrifying news is, the owner of the HVAC company will be calling next week, to see what I am wanting done to allow the Arzell venting controller to use the UPS battery backup system I have. To me it seems easy enough (for them) to do. I need the wiring/24v power brick to be able to draw the 120v power from the same place as does the Gas furnace. Would be nice if it was just the one plug, but, hey, if it is two plugs, the UPS has multiple outlets.

Well, time to get off of the blog. Power just popped off/on here. May mean an issue is coming, or, that they fixed an issue nearby and were resetting some sector. Either way, Instability is not the way to Enjoy Life