Wednesday, January 15, 2025
while the weather is still cold
I'm feeling the urge to do a crazy walk, i.e., the 60K walk I do once yearly, from my place, past Hanam City, and all the way to Yangpyeong. I should get some practice walks under my belt, then do this before the rains return. Speaking of precipitation, they're forecasting snow for tomorrow morning, but the daytime temps are going to be almost warm, with a high of 5ºC (or 41ºF, which is just jacket weather for me).
The crazy walk is normally a trek I do in either January or February, when the cold makes such a long distance bearable for me. January and early February are "dead of winter" times, but late February to the first half of March is preparation for spring. Can't wait too long.
If I have nothing else to do this spring, maybe I should take a long walk, especially if I'm rethinking my plans to go abroad to visit friends and family this year.* Or I could leave the walk to fall as per usual. Spring is beautiful, but it does get hot as we move into summer, which is why fall is normally preferable to me.
__________
*I might still hit the States to renew my driver's license, but Charles had an interesting suggestion about that that I might want to look into.
blood sugar stabilizing
Blood sugar—daily fasting glucose—in January:
January 1 started a bit high, kind of reflecting where I was in November and December. I guess those last few days of not-quite-fasting are paying off, although I see that January 6 is also a bit of a dip.* By "not-quite-fasting," I mean: smoothie in the morning or early afternoon (I recently moved back to SlimFast), then nothing the rest of the day except for random spoonfuls of almond butter and chili crunch/crisp/whatever. Oh, and diet drinks, usually Diet Cherry Coke. I make my smoothies with heavy cream and low-fat milk, the combination of which is basically half-and-half. The little hits of almond butter throughout the day also break whatever fast I might be attempting, so there's no ketosis, no autophagy going on. But aside from the smoothies' massive calorie hit in the morning, I'm not taking in more than 100-150 calories per hit of almond butter and/or chili crisp, and little more than 1000 calories per day. I also think the spiciness of the chili crisp (which isn't really that spicy) temporarily drives up my metabolism, which also lowers my blood sugar. Walking at night also helps even though I skipped Monday night. I did walk last night, though (9K again), and I'll be walking tonight and tomorrow night as well before hitting the hospital on Friday morning. Exercise definitely helps to lower blood sugar. I'd normally do a much longer walk over the weekend, but this is move-out weekend at the office, so I'll save the big stuff for next week.
No feelings of hypoglycemia (which I've felt before), and a blood-sugar reading of 79, which I got this morning, might be my lowest ever. Of course, your glucose reading fluctuates throughout the day, e.g., right after a smoothie, so take all of the above numbers with a grain of salt. They're readings from right after I get up every day. I really need to strap on my continuous glucose monitor and set up the app on my phone to get a better idea of how my day really goes. SlimFast has sugar in it, so I can imagine a temporary spike up to 150 that goes down over the next few hours, bottoming out by morning.
I need to stock up on more almond butter, come to think of it.
ADDENDUM: I hit "send" for this post and forgot to talk about the thing I really wanted to talk about: another possible reason for the radical dip in blood-sugar numbers over the past week could be the timing of my major hit of "food." While what I'm doing isn't true OMAD (one meal a day), it's close, and by taking in my nutrition in the late morning or early afternoon, I'm allowing my body to more or less rest for the remaining day, until the following meal the next morning/early afternoon. So I'm thinking that the hardcore Buddhist monks who follow the Indian Vinaya practice of not eating after noon may be on to something. Korean monks don't necessarily follow this practice; at least, not all of them do. When I was at Haein-sa in 2000, I ate afternoon meals with other monks in their refectory. I'm left to wonder whether I should just adopt that discipline and stick to low-cal meals like salads (except for a monthly cheat). After my hospital visit (which I expect not to go too well since my blood sugar was elevated for a lot of the past four months), I'll try a 30-day experiment of eating before noon. As for whether I'll continue the chili-crisp/almond-butter thing later in the day... we'll see. I doubt I have the willpower to quit. But if I can swap out SlimFast for salads or something keto-ish, that would be a welcome change.
__________
*For normies, any reading under 100 is great; 80-ish is ideal; below that starts to get dangerous. Over 120 is also no bueno, but for diabetics, 150-ish is cause for meek celebration, so for a diabetic to be around 80-ish is great, if temporary, news.
Tuesday, January 14, 2025
passport-renewal rigamarole
Things to send in to the Seoul-based US Embassy to renew a passport:
• current passport
• acceptable passport photo
• a filled-out DS-82 form
• $130 payment (yikes), paid via card or money order
• acceptable passport photo
• a filled-out DS-82 form
• $130 payment (yikes), paid via card or money order
I have my current passport, and while I thought I'd gotten passable passport photos from one of those little photo booths you find in subway stations, this site says the Korean standards are different from the US standards. Specifically, US-passport photos have to be square, 2" × 2" or 51 mm × 51 mm, not rectangular as with the Korean standard. Luckily, there's a photo studio in my building, so I'll pop down there tomorrow and have a proper US-standard photo (more likely photos) taken.
In other news: still no word about whether our team can work another six months. I guess we're waiting for the CEO to, uh, get better. I dropped off some bubble wrap at the office, took care of bank and contact-lens stuff, and I'll be lugging over my cardboard boxes on Saturday morning (I have a get-together Saturday evening, so I need to be back at my place for final food prep). Sunday will be devoted to carting my boxes back to my place, with help from the boss and his SUV. One way or another, we're outta that office.
phone "repair"
I took my phone to the local Samsung place to get it repaired. The damage was mostly to the plastic slip cover that's stuck to the surface of the screen, but there's just a teeny, tiny bit of damage to the screen itself, causing a minuscule point of discoloration. The repairman said he would just change the slip cover (for a cool W14,000, which I guess includes labor), and that the screen itself was still functional. So on the good side, I've avoided the over $100 charge to have the screen replaced (this happened once before, when I fell during a walk and injured myself), but on the bad side, the tiny discoloration might prove annoying, so I might have to go back and see about getting the screen replaced. Of course, I see teens and twentysomethings with cracked screens all the time, so maybe there's a societal expectation that I shouldn't be bothered by the tiny amount of damage. Anyway, the phone's screen looks cleaner, at least. I suppose it's been "repaired."
the new contact lens came to me damaged
I didn't bother to try my new contact lenses (the ones I picked up yesterday) until today, and I immediately saw my right lens was ripped. I'll be asking for a free exchange, and I'll definitely never be using that old man ever again for lenses. Or for anything else.
UPDATE: the guy says he'll text me when the new lens comes in. He didn't even look at the lens damage. I'll give him points for his trust.
Monday, January 13, 2025
Bannon vs. Musk
“I Made It My Personal Thing To Take This Guy Down”: Bannon Vows To Keep Musk out of White House
Steve Bannon has warned that he will do everything in his power to keep Elon Musk out of the White House, as the fallout from the H-1B debate over Christmas continues to spread.
“I will have Elon Musk run out of here by Inauguration Day,” Bannon said, in an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.
“He will not have a blue pass to the White House[;] he will not have full access to the White House[;] he will be like any other person.”
“He is a truly evil guy, a very bad guy. I made it my personal thing to take this guy down,” Bannon continued. “Before, because he put money in, I was prepared to tolerate it; I’m not prepared to tolerate it anymore.”
The newspaper notes that the “center of the clash” between Bannon and Musk is the issue of H-1B visas, but also Musk’s role in the incoming Trump administration.
“The problem is that the techno-feudal lords use them [H-1B visas] to their advantage[,] and people are furious,” Bannon says.
“76% of engineers in Silicon Valley are not Americans. It’s a central part of taking back our economy. They are the best jobs, and blacks and Hispanics do not have access to them.”
Bannon said that he had been a supporter of Musk when he made a donation of $250 million to support Trump’s election campaign, but the H-1B debate had made him realise Musk cannot be allowed to pursue his vision of “techno-feudalism.”
Well, well, well.
I'm not a fan of Steve Bannon, and while I'm firmly a Musk skeptic, I don't have nearly this much animosity against him.
the Q-tip
Trivia: a cotton swab or pad is called la ouate in French (pronounced "waht"). So a Q-tip is called a un bâton/bâtonnet ouaté, i.e., a "cottoned stick/sticklet."
trustworthiness
Remembering those bygone days when you could turn to Twitter for fast and trustworthy information on a rapidly developing story like:
— Fusilli Spock (@awstar11) January 11, 2025
- The reseviors were all full
- Hunter's laptop
- Covington Catholic
- White supremacist at Youngkin rally
- Border Control whips
- Jussie… https://t.co/t3zsVB6cwf
Pardon the goofy typos.
Sunday, January 12, 2025
job-status update
Tomorrow is Monday. I have to visit the building where I work/worked tomorrow to pick up a new set of contact lenses (and that'll be the last time I visit a glasses/contacts shop run by a "sus" old man). I also promised my Korean coworker that I'd stop by our office to visit him. With his contract that lasts until June, he'll be working by himself since my boss and I both no longer have a reason to come in to the office (but more on that in a bit).
The boss called me a bit after noon today to say that he didn't get to talk with the CEO, but he did talk with one of the CEO's underlings from HR. The CEO, said the underling, was indisposed with the flu (convenient), so whatever the boss had to say could be said to the underling. The boss replied that he wanted to speak with the CEO directly, but he did end up saying a thing or two to the underling, anyway.
Upshot: according to the underling, even if we get a new contract for six months, we can no longer work in our office in Daechi-dong. The boss said fine, and that we could work from home (I wince as I imagine all the phone calling* going back and forth). Six months of that, then done. So this week, it's likely I'll be going to the office to box my shit up, then on the weekend (because the boss, who has his pride, doesn't want to be seen moving out), we'll use the boss's newly repaired SUV to transport everything to our respective residences.
Of course, we still don't know whether we'll secure a six-month contract. I imagine the boss will meet with the CEO... soon. I'd like to say this week, but who knows with that man? He's a flake who makes decisions only at the last second, and he ignores communications that are sent to him. Whatever. This will all soon be over.
__________
*Or Zooming.
signs and wonders
So James Woods’ house miraculously survived after left-wingers said it burning down was a sign from God.
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) January 10, 2025
So what’s the sign now? Will we get any updates?
Jack Smith resigns
Good riddance, Jack Smith. Unfortunately, he leaves behind a corrupt DOJ that's more intent on witch-hunting than on doing its actual job. There will be other Jack Smiths.
Don't Cry Cryo
You need to watch this to the end.
Credit: John from Daejeon. "Peaceful bilss"?
You'll notice that the typed-in title for the thumbnail includes a vocative comma, which means the title is a comment being addressed to "Cryo," which in this context is a pun on cryogenics and crybaby. But the vocative comma appears nowhere else in the video, meaning "Don't cry" isn't being addressed to anyone, and it's why I didn't include the comma in my post title.
the thing I haven't written about
Back when I wrote this post, I said parenthetically:
(If we get a contract by this Friday, I'll stay.)
Well, we don't have a contract, but the boss told me on Friday that our illustrious CEO's secretary had finally contacted him, and the CEO wants to meet directly with my boss on Sunday (technically, today as I write this). The boss does better with the CEO when they meet face to face because the CEO lacks the spine to act against the boss when they're in front of each other. So there's a chance the boss might wrest another six months from the CEO, in which case I guess I'll be going back to work, as if nothing happened, for another six months. But for me, it'll only be six months. The company obviously doesn't want us, so why stay? And I don't want the boss to use this probable reprieve as an excuse not to do anything about making his new company while we work on finishing the current series we're working on.
We'll have to talk about all of this on Monday (although I expect the boss will be calling me Sunday night to talk about how his meeting with the CEO went), but my intention is to quit the company after we do our six months. And if the boss doesn't have a company for me to join this year, then I guess I'll figure things out on my own. I'm also a bit annoyed that, if I do go back to work, I'll have to put self-education off another few months.
It's always like this, every year or every two years: our team gets threatened with extinction, and then there's an eleventh-hour save. It's frankly no longer worth it. I want stability, not the sword of Damocles. Expect more news soon.
Oh, yes, one more thing: it occurs to me that I've been with this company for ten years (longer than with any previous company), and I don't think they've published more than one set of textbooks that I've worked on during that time. And that set apparently got seized by a Korean R&D team and reworked into something both unrecognizable and retarded.
the -8ºC, 9K walk
I took my first walk along the Tan Creek in a while: the old 9K route out to the Han River confluence and back. There's a ton of construction going on there now, not just that silly off-ramp that they've been building for over a year. It seems they're adding some kind of short access road at about creek level, plus another car/truck bridge across the creek (with space for the creek's water to flow through beneath). The whole thing is ugly, and by the time it's done, traffic will have built up to the point where whatever problem they'd been trying to solve is no longer solved. Just like in the DC area when they try to widen, say, Route 495 by adding one lane in each direction: traffic is constricted for years, and the pressure continues to build. Then one day, the new lanes are opened, and there's a momentary sigh of relief... until people realize that, with ever more cars on the road, the extra lanes don't do anything to improve circulation. If there were some magical way to—poof—create new lanes in an instant, our problems would be solved. But that's only in my dreams.
Anyway, there's a lot of ugly construction along the Tan Creek, but I like the new biking/walking path they've set up for people going east along the Han toward Hanam City. Not much has changed for people going left and west along the Han, toward Yeouido and eventually the Gayang Bridge, then just past that to the Ara Canal, which leads one to Incheon.
No angina tonight. Not a twinge. It helps that I've been sort-of fasting for the past few days (smoothie + a spoonful of almond butter, and nothing else all day), and I'll be continuing right up until my appointment this coming Friday. The hospital sent me their automatic patient-history questionnaire about my recent BP and pulse, which is the first in a series of text messages they'll be sending over the next few days to prep me for the hospital visit. I'll get reminders of what appointments I have, where they are, and at what time they'll be; I'll also get a QR code so I can enter the hospital on the day of my appointment.
I don't expect my A1c to be very good; I was 5.9 last time, four months ago, but I may be over 7.0 right now since I went a little off the chain both during my walk and between the walk's halves (Thanksgiving). I've been tracking my numbers on a Google spreadsheet, using a formula that takes daily glucose numbers and converts them into A1c results, but I wonder how accurate the formula is (as well as how accurate all of my home equipment is—BP, blood sugar, etc.). I'm going to ask the docs whether I can get scanned for blockages again, and I'll also ask them a somewhat unrelated question about coming in for a colonoscopy—something you're supposed to do when you turn 50, which makes me five years late.
It was about -8ºC (18ºF) tonight, which turned out not to be terribly cold, but I'd bundled up, anyway, wearing my winter vest under my down coat, plus two layers of gloves, a scarf, and two layers of hats: a beanie with a balaclava over it (here's a pic of a balaclava... better that than a dickie). I was cozy the entire time, probably because I kept my hands in my coat pockets, and probably because the cold wasn't really that extreme.
As long as this weather holds, there will be many more winter walks to come.
Saturday, January 11, 2025
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