The Mysteries of YouTube

By | April 19, 2021
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So some of you may be active enough on YouTube to know that you can’t “monetize” your “channel” unless you have over 1000 subscribers and over 4000 hours of viewers watching your videos in the last 12 months. Monetization means you can add advertisements and such to your videos and get revenue from them.
 
OK. Deep breath.
 
So I’ve been getting notifications every day of one or two people subscribing to my channel. No idea why they’re doing it, but there they are, regular as clockwork, one or two notifications a day. And today, I apparently crossed the 1000 subscriber mark — and, as it happens, have also exceeded that 4000 viewing hours mark.
I say this because, today, I got the email everyone wakes up every day of their life hoping to get:
Woo-hoo!
But — the question inevitably comes up: what the hell are they watching?
I don’t have that many videos on YouTube. And nothing I have out there is worth watching unless you either know me well or you’re really bored.
So let’s check, shall we?
Sorting by number of views, my top videos are:
That’s right.
  1. Three minutes of cement mixer trucks driving by
  2. An ice cream truck driving up to my former employer’s office building
  3. Another cement mixer truck video, this one with holiday lights attached, taken one New Year’s Eve

The views kind of drop off after that — a video of my wife’s sometime concert band playing the theme from Hogan’s Heroes, the local minor league baseball team’s mascot shaking its ass at the opposing dugout, and a 360 degree video of the Richmond, VT July 4th parade. And so on down from there.

So I have to ask: what the hell is it about cement mixer trucks? And ice cream trucks? I mean, really?

And what makes a person, after watching three minutes of cement mixer trucks driving by, go “I don’t want to miss any more videos like that — I’d better subscribe!”?

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Vaccination

By | April 8, 2021
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Covid-19 vaccine update:

Carole has had both her shots — several weeks ago, in fact, through her employer. She works for Burlington Housing Authority and they have a population of elderly residents in some of their buildings, so as it happened, the state went ahead and offered all BHA staff shots at the same time those elderly residents were getting theirs. Nice!

I had to wait until this past Monday to get my shot — I didn’t qualify as part of any priority group so I had to wait until Vermont allowed the 50+ cohort to register. My appointment was for Monday, April 5 at Montpelier High School, about a half hour from my house and less than a mile from the Vermont state capitol. It was apparently State Employee Volunteer Day at the Montpelier vaccination center; lots of the people doing non-medical tasks (like reading off screening questions, taking temps at the door, checking people in and out) were state employees who had been given paid time away from their jobs to go help out. I was signed in, for example, by Vermont’s current Lieutenant Governor, Molly Gray.

I received the single-dose Johnson and Johnson vaccine instead of one of the two-dose vaccines — that was just what the vaccination center had that day. No need for me to go back and get another shot, so I guess I should circle April 19 on my calendar as the day our household will theoretically be 100% safe, or as safe as safe can be.

For some strange reason, a New England Cable News reporter and cameraperson singled me out from the dozens of other people arriving for their shots and filmed me at several stages of the process. I got filmed getting my temperature taken with one of those forehead thermal scanners, got filmed getting checked in by Molly Gray, got filmed getting the shot, and got filmed in the hallway outside after it was all over and asked my opinion about what the governmental employees volunteering meant to me and how I felt about getting vaccinated. I gave permission and signed a release and all that, but I still don’t know why they looked at me out of all the others and said “Him!” Perhaps I just looked so utterly completely middle-of-the-road safe/boring that they figured I’d make for a good vox pop.

The footage aired that night on local NBC channel WPTZ and on the NECN cable network itself. If you’re really, really bored you can watch the WPTZ version here. The NECN version, which is a bit longer and also features Vermont’s Governor, Phil Scott, getting his vaccination, is here.

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Feline progressive dendritic cell histiocytosis

By | December 11, 2020
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Fat black cat hunkering on the floor, with line visible on her left side where her stitches were taken out

Marie, post stitch removal

 
We hadn’t either until recently. One day, when I was grooming our oldest cat, Marie, I noticed that she had a strange raised lumpiness on her skin about halfway down one side. I thought at first it might be scar tissue from the time Carole cut her skin open trying to trim matted fur (Marie does not do a good job cleaning herself) but it turns out that that cut was on her hip; this was on her side.
 
We took her to the Richmond Animal Hospital and they’d never seen anything like it; they took a cell sample and sent it off to be analyzed but the results were inconclusive. They asked us what we wanted to do and I said “well, I’m open to surgery if that makes sense”. So they first tried to schedule us in at the Peak Veterinary Referral Center in Williston, but they were scheduling out to January. So the vets here in Richmond said they’d do it. They shaved Marie basically bald on that side of her body and found that she had not one, but four of those strange lumps on her side — one large and three smaller. All were removed, stitches were put in, and the tissue was sent off to the oncologists at Peak.
 
We took Marie back a couple of weeks later for the stitches to be taken out, and then yesterday we took her to see an actual oncologist and dermatologist at Peak. Their conclusion: feline progressive dendritic cell histiocytosis. It’s not at all common. Something similar apparently happens more often in dogs and in dogs apparently the lumps go away of their own accord.
 
In “a proportion” of cats (don’t you love medical trade journal terminology?), the disease leads to tumors and stuff internally, so they suggested an ultrasound and an X-ray. I don’t know what I would have done if they’d come back and said “OH DEAR LORD IT’S EVERYWHERE” but they didn’t — they came back and said there were no signs at all of anything unusual.
 
Throughout all this, Marie has had her regular appetite and hasn’t shown any signs of feeling bad, so we’re hoping that this is just one of the lesser cases that doesn’t progress any further. They did recommend we have her checked every three months or so to see if her lymph nodes have enlarged or anything like that.
 
What makes me bring all this messy feline medical data up here on Facebook is the cost, frankly. I think we’re up around $2,500 in bills so far — initial exam and labs, surgery, removal of stitches, visit to oncologist/dermatologist with ultrasound and x-rays… it’s all cost a lot. And yet, I’d do it again; Marie may not be the friendliest cat (she was, we assume, abused in the house she lived in before she wound up at the Humane Society) but I want her to be happy and healthy. I wasn’t about to go “well, we’ll just let it run its course and if she starts feeling bad, we’ll have her put to sleep.” She’s a family member and she deserves to be treated like one.
 

But that said — we’re very fortunate that this expense, while frustrating, is something that won’t absolutely wreck our household finances. As I sit here thinking about this, I can’t help thinking about (and feeling bad about) all the people out there who aren’t in a relatively Covid-19-proof line of work and who couldn’t possibly afford all this… whether for a cat or an actual human member of their family. It pisses me off that Senator McConnell and others are playing politics with stimulus checks — and that we’re in this dire economic situation because our “President” had his head firmly up his ass. People shouldn’t be in a position of deciding whether to get health care for their family (human or cat) or, instead, afford to buy groceries.

(I should mention that this episode just reminds me again how terrible cancer is. Marie’s condition is not even technically cancer, I think… but worry over her “strange lumps” was upsetting enough when it was a cat. Now imagine how bad you feel and how worried you’d be if a loved human member of your family got a diagnosis of cancer and found that it was already metastasizing. Cancer may be inevitable, but no one should have to make choices such as “well, I have to divorce my husband so I’ll qualify for this low-cost insurance program that will treat my cancer”. No one should have to worry about the cost of necessary treatment for life-threatening health conditions. Our society is beyond f___ed up. Our priorities are crazy wrong.

 
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Orchestrating Change: Tonight!

By | September 5, 2020
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The documentary, “Orchestrating Change“, that I’m a featured subject in airs nationwide on PBS Plus/PBS World tonight at 8 pm EDT and again at midnight.

I created a Facebook event for people to help people remember to tune in:

Facebook event

The documentary is about Me2/Orchestra, the world’s only orchestra dedicated to people with mental illness and their friends families and allies. The documentary was filmed in 2017, went through post-production for a year and some change, and has begun being shown at film festivals. Tonight, however, will be the first time that it airs on national television.

I mention this not because of vanity, but because I think it’s a really worthwhile film that a lot of people will enjoy and learn from. Me2/Orchestra has changed many people’s lives for the better, including mine.

Check your local listings for “Orchestrating Change” on PBS World/PBS Plus and tune in tonight!

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Misophonia

By | January 30, 2020
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After all these years, I have an explanation for why I absolutely can’t stand listening to someone eat an apple.

It’s misophonia — and apparently the loathing of hearing someone eat an apple is one of the most common expressions of the syndrome.

Not all crunching sounds drive me up a wall. There’s just something about the crunch and rasp of an apple being eaten that that makes me want to run away, scream, etcetera. With every bite, I have a corresponding flinch and grimace. Or at least I used to — I’ve gotten much better about keeping the distress on the inside and not showing it.

In any event, apparently I’m one of the last people on the planet to have encountered this concept… There’re GAZILLIONS of articles on the Web on the subject.

For example: https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-46193709

Fortunately, I have it at a mild level. There are people who fly into a rage when they are forced to hear certain sounds. The pain is just that severe.

Apples are definitely my bête noire, but are by no means the only thing that gets on my nerves. I hate being stuck in a roomful of people eating too. Especially if it’s a confined conference room or other otherwise quiet space — there’s nothing to mask or drown out all the slurping and chomping and gulping and rustling of wrappers and everything else that goes along with it.

I just about always skip lunch when I’m working; I’m often onsite at a corporate office and I typically just keep on working during a lunch break during a day-long meeting. If the people I am meeting with go somewhere else to eat, I’m happy. If they bring the food back to the room I’m in, I am, um, on edge.

The sound of a bunch of people who went out and brought lunch back and are smacking and slurping and chewing through it drives me up a wall. I sit there with a blank half-smile on my face, evidently without a care in the world… but if I can find an excuse to go run an errand or go to another room and “check messages” or something, I do. I don’t mind eating in a restaurant where there’s enough background noise that I’m not forced to listen to every munch, crunch, slobber and slurp. It’s not bad when it’s just me and Carole either. What makes the Conference Room Lunch Break Torture so horrible is that there’s absolutely nothing to drown it out; conference rooms are quiet places and so for the half hour or so it takes to get people fed you basically hear nothing BUT

SLURRRRRRP
CHOMP CHOMP
CRUNNNNCH
SLURRRRRRRP
rustle rustle of sandwich wrapper
{lather rinse repeat}

Again… I can control my outward reaction. I don’t sit there shaking with rage or anything. But inside, behind the cool, relaxed exterior, there’s a Jay that’s going “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.” 🙂

 

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Changes in Latitude

By | December 17, 2019
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I enjoy travel. I mean, I’d pretty much have to, or it wouldn’t make much sense for me to work as a trainer who travels all over the USA two thirds (if not more) of each year, right?

But even though I take pleasure in memories of places I’ve been, I spend as least as much time fantasizing about places I haven’t been, and feeling inferior because of the relatively pedestrian accomplishments I have on that front.

I’ve been just about everywhere in the USA. All fifty states. I can stand in front of a departures board at a major airport and count on one hand the domestic airports on the list that I haven’t been to.

But…

I’ve never been to the Southern Hemisphere — I know several people who’ve been to Australia and/or New Zealand.

I’ve never been to east or southeast Asia — I know people who go to Japan and Singapore and places like that for work all the time.

I haven’t been to Antarctica or to the Arctic. One friend of mine from work has done both — visiting Barrow, AK one year and Antarctica another year.

I’ve never been to Israel or anywhere else bordering the Mediterranean. Some friends have done the standard Holy Land tours and others have done the Barcelona-to-Rome Mediterranean cruise thing. My sister, who served in the US Army in Germany, got to do a bona-fide Aegean vacation at one point, even.

Certainly, I’ve gotten around more than some, but again, only to pretty easy-to-get-to places. Curacao (for a week), the Bahamas, Jamaica, and the Cayman Islands (a Caribbean cruise) England (London only, for four days or so), France (Paris and Normandy, for eight days), Denmark (five days) and a bunch of coastal stopovers on a Baltic cruise (Germany, Estonia, Finland, Sweden, and St Petersburg in Russia). Many places in Canada. Tijuana and Cozumel in Mexico. Nothing that required 12 hours on a plane. Nothing that required packing winter clothing for a July vacation.

So… this coming year, unless something happens to change our plans dramatically, we’re going to, um, Wyoming and South Dakota.

We thought about doing Ireland/Scotland or Switzerland/southern Germany/etcetera, but when the smoke had cleared, I had reservations in hand for June flights to and from Rapid City, so I guess it’s pretty much decided. My family did a big driving vacation around the Black Hills and Yellowstone when I was in high school, but Carole’s never seen that area, and for some reason, the thought of renting an RV and driving around appealed to us enough to go ahead and confirm the trip.

This whole thing came up, for me, this morning in the shower when I absent-mindedly found myself wondering which was further north, Porvoo, Finland or Juneau, Alaska — and which, therefore, would represent my northernmost point. (I remembered later that I actually made it to Fraser, BC and Skagway, AK on that Alaska trip, both of which are further north than Juneau.) The answer turned out to be Porvoo.

Furthest north: Porvoo, Finland (60.3932° N, 25.6653° E)

Furthest south: Jan Thiel Beach, Curacao (12.0802° N, 68.8780° W)

Furthest east: St Petersburg, Russia (59.9343° N, 30.3351° E)

Furthest west: Koloa, Hawaii (21.9067° N, 159.4692° W)

I take casual note of the fact that Koloa and St Petersburg are more than 180 degrees of longitude apart going west from St Petersburg, so I’ve spanned a bit over half the Earth’s circumference.

Sigh. So many places to go, so little time. And money. And sanity. Maybe one year I’ll make it to Switzerland and Scotland and Australia and New Zealand and Ouagadougou.

 

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Sadfishing

By | December 4, 2019
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Photo by Patrice Alsteen

I learned a new term today: “sadfishing“. To quote Urban Dictionary, sadfishing is “The practice of writing about one’s unhappiness or emotional problems on social media, especially in a vague way, in order to attract attention and sympathetic response.”

In other words, posting a lot of moody, sad pictures, woe-is-me out of context messages, and so forth, but never actually coming right out and saying “PAY ATTENTION TO ME”.

Sadfishing is hitting the news all over the place lately, and a lot of the media coverage is focusing on the “when you sadfish, you’re giving bullies ammunition, so don’t” aspect. When celebrities are seen “sadfishing”, they’re trying to get attention and impressions; when a kid in the ninth grade does it, it’s probably more of a genuine cry for help from someone in emotional turmoil, but that doesn’t mean that the class asshole is going to be Mister Sensitive and treat it that way.

As an admitted attention-seeker, I can certainly understand where the urge to sadfish might come from. You want the attention, but you don’t want to be seen wanting attention. And I’ll grant that if social media had been a thing when I was in high school and college, I’d probably have sadfished with the best of them. Was I depressed all the time? Yes. Did I want sympathy and attention? You bet.

But I’m not a teenager now (I’m 52) and I’d really rather not be seen as acting like one. And that’s why I’ve tried to avoid posting much of anything on Facebook and Twitter for some time now; I know how mawkish and pathetic I tend to get and it’s better not to post anything at all given how messed up my brain typically is.

However, as some of you have noticed, from time to time I post woe-is-me blog entries where I apologize for everything under the sun and all but do a “GOODBYE CRUEL WORLD I WON’T BE POSTING ANY MORE” thing. If that comes across as excessively over-the-top attention-seeking behavior, I’m sorry. It probably is. I kind of wish I could take back those blog entries and just disappear.

Is it sadfishing when you explicitly say “Boy, I’m depressed and I’m sorry for how badly I’ve behaved over the years?” I’d argue that it’s not — you have to be trying to be subtle and acting like you’re not trying to be noticed.

Is it, on the other hand, pathetic to moan and groan overtly about how awful you are in blog entry after blog entry?

Well, yeah.

Newsflash: I’m pathetic.

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Salsa

By | October 19, 2019
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We planted lots of chile and bell peppers in every color and size and degree of hotness (well, just about) and chopped them all up into a container of, well, chile hash — which we then used today to make 12 quarts of salsa.

Ideally, we’d have used homegrown tomatoes as well, but we didn’t focus on paste tomatoes in our garden — mostly, we got zillions of cherry and currant tomatoes and a few other varieties, but not enough. Instead, we bought nine large containers of roma tomatoes from Costco, added a lot of sweet onion, green onion, cilantro, and garlic — and then got down to the serious business of boiling it all up and canning.

Jay very carefully used me as a barometer to know how much chopped chile to add to the salsa; he added a bit at a time and stirred and had me taste and so on until I said “that’s probably enough, definitely don’t add any more.”

We don’t do this sort of thing as a rule — it’s been years since we did any serious gardening, but as the photos show, this year we got into raised plants and container gardens in a big way.

Next year, having learned what worked well and what didn’t work, we’ll probably grow fewer varieties of tomatoes and more of the specific kinds we really liked. As for the chiles — well, who knows what Jay will do next year? (Answer: not even Jay.)

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How You Know You’ve Spent Way Too Many Nights In Hotels

By | October 18, 2019
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I’ve been in this job since May of 1998. A job that requires a lot of travel — usually a couple of flights to get to some distant city in the USA on Sunday or Monday and a couple of flights to get back home that Friday or Saturday. And in between — a lot of hotel stays. My employer has, for a long time, had a ‘preferred’ relationship with the extended Hilton chain of hotels — Embassy Suites, Doubletree, Hampton Inn, Homewood Suites, Hilton Garden Inn, and so on — which means we get a better rate if we stay there, which of course keeps my employer happy.

You stay in Hilton properties sixty nights in a year, they give you “Diamond” status and you get the occasional upgrade and so on … but you also get increased points for your stays, and points translate into free rooms at a later date, which I get to use, which makes me happy and makes Carole even happier. We once stayed in a Hilton a couple of blocks from the Arc de Triomphe in downtown Paris — six nights — for free. It would have been something like $800 a night had we been paying.

But today I found out what happens if you stay in Hilton properties 1,000 nights (and you manage to earn Diamond level status for ten or more years) …

I got a nice little welcome kit in the mail today, certifying me as Lifetime Diamond, meaning that I’ll always have Diamond status even if I don’t actually stay enough nights in a given year to earn that status. The kit included a luggage tag, of which one can never have too many; a metal membership card instead of a cheap plastic one; a little note telling me how awesome I am; and a pair of free Bose Soundsport earbuds. I’ll probably wind up just giving those to Carole because if I take them along with me on trips I’ll just wind up losing them.

Still, even though I guess it’s kind of nice to be all Mr. Lifetime Diamond and that, it’s also a little sobering to realize just how many nights away from home I’ve had over the years. A thousand nights over 22 years (and occasionally nights in other chains as well, which obviously don’t count toward my Hilton total) is really a hell of a lot.

So hey. I’m Mr. Lifetime Diamond.

Woo!

(Parenthetically, this kit — and the status it bestowed — arrived three days before I’m coincidentally scheduled to roll over the odometer and become a million mile flier on United. That’s nothing compared to the poor bastards who fly every day or who fly to Japan or Europe each week, but it’s a lot for people who do what I do.)

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