“Not having a fever is not indicative of not being contagious.”
I wrote that over chat to a friend, after researching briefly and finding that I might still be contagious even though I’m not running a fever.
Clearly I’m not [not not?] over this cold yet.
So, last week didn’t go exactly as planned. FB use was definitely diminished, though my sister having a baby increased it (which I was fine with), as was sugar intake for most days.
Sugar intake:
I had soda at lunch on Thursday. Not often do I get a free lunch, and it’s so much better with soda, or so I’ve thought, so I had one with two refills.
Two small cookies on Family Night (Friday evening).
Saturday:
One donut with my son on his daddy date. Only one, though, and I didn’t even eat all of it. I also had a blueberry muffin and half of my son’s leftover one later in the day. One more small cookie after dinner.
Sunday:
Waffles for breakfast (not a usual breakfast), chocolate covered peanuts (our normal “Sunday treat”), a mocha iced coffee, and a piece of Texas sheet cake. Plus a beer and two glasses or wine. So yeah, yesterday was, um, a bit more than I had planned. Oh well. It was a weird Sunday.
Gosh, writing all of that down makes it sound like a lot, and it was–especially yesterday. And yet that actually was more restrained than normal has been. Scary. Writing this down has been good for me; I will do the same next week. But it should be less this week.
My stake in the ground:
1. No more sugar outside of special events (such as one piece of cake on birthdays, one cookie on family night, whatever). In particular, no donuts, no soft drinks, no sweet cereals, no syrup, and no candy–especially alone/in secret. This one is needed for several reasons, but primarily my health. I think I’m pretty much accustomed to just having elevated blood-sugar all of the time–and from everything I can see, that’s just not good. I did “no sugar” for almost a week a while back, but fell off the wagon pretty quickly since I was looking at it as just one week. This needs to be a lifestyle change, I think, but I’ll give it a time-period for starters: Till the end of March. But the goal is to change permanently to consume very little sugar.
2. No Facebook this week, and less over all (install StayFocusd at home with 5 minute per day max for FB). Don’t use FB at all on phone, except for posting family-related stuff. This one is hard, but necessary. It’s a phenomenal time-waste, nets very little real value, and tends to irritate me/upset me.
I’ll check up here weekly on Mondays until the end of March. Dates needing a post/comment: March 3, 10, 17, 24, and 31.
That’s all.
“Sometimes I use the phrase ‘wartime lifestyle’ or ‘wartime mind-set.’ The phrase is helpful–but also lopsided. For me it is mainly helpful. It tells me that there is a war going on in the world between Christ and Satan, truth and falsehood, belief and unbelief. It tells me that there are weapons to be funded and used, but these weapons are not swords or guns or bombs but the Gospel and prayer and self-sacrificing love (2 Corinthians 10:3-5). And it tells me that the stakes of this conflict are higher than any other war in history; they are eternal and infinite: heaven or hell, eternal joy or eternal torment (Matthew 25:46).
“I need to hear this message again and again, because I drift into a peacetime mind-set as certainly as rain falls down and flames go up. I am wired by nature to love the same toys that the world loves. I start to fit in. I start to love what others love. I start to call earth ‘home.’ Before you know it, I am calling luxuries ‘needs’ and using my money just the way unbelievers do. I begin to forget the war. I don’t think much about people perishing. Missions and unreached peoples drop out of my mind. I stop dreaming about the triumphs of grace. I sink into a secular mindset that looks first to what man can do, not what God can do. It is a terrible sickness. And I thank God for those who have forced me again and again toward a wartime mind-set.”
John Piper, “Don’t Waste Your Life,” p. 112.
I’ve written about Linux in the past. I don’t think I’ve deleted all of the posts. Maybe I have. Not sure.
Anyway, new install here. Fedora 19.
Problems so far:
1. Installed 32 bit version first because I didn’t realize my computer was compatible with 64 bit. User error. Oops.
2. First install of 32 bit apparently borked. Not sure what happened. I’m pretty sure this occurred because the primary item on the boot screen was the same as the second except that it always crashed almost immediately.
3. Couldn’t burn 64 bit ISO. There was no “write to disk” option. Filed a bug about this. Burned 64 bit DVD on another computer (Windows) to obviate the problem
4. First attempt at installing 64 bit borked, too. Again, no idea what happened. Does Fedora always need two installs?
5. Must have neglected to select “administrator” for my username when setting up my user name. Worked around it once online by adding user to sudoers.
But second install worked, I’ve got XFCE installed, I’ve got Chrome installed, and I’m cooking with gas. Wireless mouse was installed without issue, moved the start menu (or whatever it’s called) to the bottom without issue, etc. Everything’s working. Getting used to “yum” as opposed to “apt-get” will take some time, but hey, that’s OK.
I hate, despise, loathe, detest, etc., the new Compose window. It sucks. When I click “Compose” I do not want something itty-bitty on my lower right in which to write a message. It sucks.
Going through my old drafts folder and found this post. I’ll leave it as is and post it.
I like sports a lot. Have since I was a kid, even though my parents never cared for them at all. Recessive gene or something.
Anyway, I have a few thoughts about basketball:
1. I’m very disappointed in Derek Fisher. The way he quit on the Mavericks only to come back 65 days later was, as far as I can tell, extremely lame. His reason that “It’s just about making a decision I felt was best for me at this time” sums him up pretty well in my eyes: loser.
2. Kobe Bryant is an amazingly talented basketball player. One of the best all time. But I think he’s a probably a pretty terrible human being. The rape thing is part of it, for sure, but even considered as a basketball player in isolation he’s a jerk. Just watch this video. Or if that link doesn’t work at some point in the future, just Google “Kobe Bryant dirty.” There are just too many plays where he’s taken shots at players for it to be incidental. He’s had some amazing highlights, but really, he’s a dirty player who should get suspended more often.
3. I’m in no way a Philadelphia 76er’s fan, but you can’t help but feel bad for them regarding Andrew Bynum. Yeah, he had somewhat balky knees before, but hindsight is 20-20. They couldn’t have known things would be this bad. I feel badly for them.
My how things have changed since my last post. I actually was able to return my Galaxy SII. On the one hand, that was hard. I really like the phone. But on the other, it was driving me batty not being able to receive certain text messages (like all of the ones my iPhone-centric family would send). The final straw was when I paid $40 to have it flashed by a professional to PagePlus and the joker actually used a cracked program on my computer to do the flashing. I was not pleased with that. Well, actually, I guess the final-final straw was when the next day calls, texting, and data ALL quit working. Yeah, I was really frustrated.
Anyway, the guy took the phone back and I was happy to be done with it.
Since then, I bought a fantastic condition HTC Incredible for $20 less than I received for the water damaged one I sold on Craigslist (I was totally up front about its issues). But the SII had spoiled me. I really wanted a faster, more up-to-date phone, and I *really* wanted a larger screen. That was pretty much the biggest complaint I had with the Incredible. It’s a great phone otherwise (which is why I don’t think I could ever go with an iPhone).
So, after watching Ebay for a few days, I sprung on a low-priced, clean ESN, “good condition” HTC Rezound. I like HTC. I know they aren’t as popular as Samsung, but the SIII was more than I wanted to pay, and they didn’t have a Verizon SII. Plus I don’t like the SIII’s stupid home button. Why thy wanted to copy Apple and have a hard button in the middle of the screen like that is beyond me.
Anyway, so I did get my Rezound. I looked into flashing it myself and gave a somewhat serious attempt at doing it with DFS. But things weren’t working out. The only guides I could find used cracked software, which I am morally opposed to using. So I ended up going through a local remotesquaD flasher to have it flashed for me. The guy didn’t totally inspire confidence, but it ended up working out OK after I got off the stock ROM and went with a Cyanogenmod. I don’t have 3g coverage (supposedly things go haywire when using a 4g phone on PagePlus with 3g), but that’s OK by me. I have wireless most places, except work, and I shouldn’t be screwing around on my phone too much at work, so that’s a good deterrent.
Anyway, I’ve had my working Rezound for a week now. I really do like it. It’s very similar to the SII in ways that I like, but it doesn’t have the text messaging issues that the SII had. My only wish would be that it were a little thinner. But that’s not a big deal. It’s really serving me well so far. May it continue to do so for at least a year.
Oh, the humanity!
I like much of Android, but part of me longs for the simplicity of Apple.
It all started with failed MMS messages.
I bought a Epic 4G Touch on Craigslist. I loved it. It’s been great. Until my little sister was in labor. I had 24 text messages, but couldn’t read any of them. They were all MMS messages. Iphones, heaven-help-them, apparently send messages as MMS by default or some such nonsense. Whatever the case, the messages didn’t go through correctly and couldn’t be downloaded. I was running some version of Jelly Bean that had been flashed when I bought the phone.
So…
I decided to try to downgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich to “fix” the problem via a one-click-install with Odin. No dice. Still doesn’t work. Grr…. I should have backed up whatever version I had before.
Oh well.
So now I’m downloading a CM version (since I’m pretty sure that’s what I had before) and hoping it works. We shall see.
What would I really like? I really just want the phone to work with all basic functions: Calls, texts, MMS, 3g data, and apps. And root (because of Droidwall). That’s it. I don’t think I’m that picky. I just want to be able to use my phone the way I want to. And I don’t want to pay a lot for it. So I’m using Page Plus. Dang it, there goes Apple.
Anyway, I really do like Android, but it’s annoying to have to figure this stuff out. I wish it were easier.
That’s the cost of saving money, I suppose.
Attempting a post from my new cell phone. Loving it so far.
