Absences

[Darby]

I'll probably be somewhat scarce for a while ... friend of mine is on hospice.

[Faradave]

Sorry to hear that. Quite understandable.

Perhaps your friend's diet would still allow for a favorite home-made dish?

[Faradave]

It might not be a bad idea, if one doesn't already exist, to have an "In Abstentia" thread, where members can advise of a temporary change in vigilance. The intent would be to assure regular discussants they're not being deliberately ignored.

[mtbturtle]

There you go Faradave

[Braininvat]

I will be gone for 3 hours, maybe a bit longer.

Basically, they have to clean out the vat. Intake and waste ports are flushed out, beer residue scrubbed off the interior surfaces, and the brain itself is washed (no worries, not in any sinister Manchurian candidate way) off with soothing jets of soda water and Ringer's solution. Some of the fold areas take quite a bit of work (it's quite convoluted, my brain), so it can run
as long as 5 hours.

[Braininvat]

Darby, sorry to hear about your friend. I should perhaps have reined in the jocularity in my previous post, and would have gained some level of restraint by reading the OP first. I hope you and your friend find time to dwell on life's beauty.

[Dave_Oblad]

Hurry back Darby and best wishes to your Friend. Between My Mothers time requirements (I'm a care giver) and my Job, I'm lucky to have 1 hour per 24 to call my own. And I spend that hour here when I can. I also think it's a good idea of having this thread.. as I hate for others to think I'm ignoring them just because of the frequent shifts of my available personal time.

Regards,
Dave :^)

[Darby]

Sorry to hear that. Quite understandable.

Perhaps your friend's diet would still allow for a favorite home-made dish?

Sadly, no.

It's end stage lung cancer, and he doesnt want visitors, so there's a lot of behind the scenes pow wowing going on among friends trying to figure out how to be supportive and pay respects to someone who wants to spend their remaining time alone. It's tough ... everyone has their own way of dealing with such things.

*sigh*

I tend to isolate when I'm unwell too, so I understand how he feels ... doesnt make it any easier on friends and family though.

[zetreque]

I may be absent for a while. In reality I should be absent for a while to focus on life.
You might find me later on the peoples court or in jail, or both. hahahaha

I am having a serious problem with my neighbors and life right now and I need to narrow my focus onto more of what matters. For everyone reading this. Noise pollution and this car horn feedback technology is a serious problem. I have been researching it intensely this summer and learned so much. It's not something you understand until you have been a victim of it and case by case scenario. It's an area of society that has been neglected since government funding was lost in 1981-1982 but that's another debate. Start a thread on it if you want, but I won't be there because I don't' think I could handle it right now. I am being harassed by my next door neighbor, and before you say anything, I did not retaliate or do anything for the past month since I let her know that it bothered me. In fact I have done nothing at all. If I did, she won't tell me or communicate. She is just being a bully probably because of her own life and problems. I simply filed a complaint yesterday and now I am being harassed more than ever. It doesn't help that my other neighbors are just as oblivious and the neighborhood sucks. I have had many sleepless nights this summer. This is absolutely absurd. If his is humanity, I clearly am not human. It looks like there are eviction procedures, town meetings, and court rulings as this progresses. I am not the only one affected. I don't need this shit when I have so much else going in life taking care of aging parents and such. Also school is starting soon and I have many exciting things I want to study this semester. I may just move out of here and sleep in my truck if I can get away with it or commute to stay with my dad. I really don't know. I might just be venting and will be back tomorrow posting. I did however sleep on it before posting this message. (If you can call what I did sleep as I listened to headphones trying to sleep to drown out noises)
I love this forum, and get so much out of it. Thank you all.

Life sure is a battle, one after another. I hope I can keep fighting to a natural aged death. I hope I can come out of this one even more wise and able to contribute to the forum. I also debated on if I should share such personal details on this public forum. O-well. Here it is. no need to respond or comment back. I'll figure it out as I always do. Thanks for "listening".

[Faradave]

Thanks for "listening".

Sorry to hear about the continued disturbances zetreque. It's certainly understandable when you're busy taking care of business. Some municipalities have noise ordinances which may apply to your situation and can be documented with a sound meter. It may be possible to search them for your location.

For what it's worth, I find that a nap if convenient is worth double its time. So, for me a 1 hour nap + 6 hours at night works as well as 8 hours at night. If it's quite at your parents place, I bet they'd understand if you grabbed thirty winks in their Lazy Boy before returning home from a visit.

My wife finds it difficult to sleep in unfamiliar locations (e.g. on vacation) but she doesn't like to use sleep meds. However, we found that by placing one on the night table, with a glass of water, just it's availability often reassures her to sleep.

When I'm at SPCF, 90% of what I post amounts to thinking "out loud" as a rationality check. If I can put my thoughts into words, I find I'm most of the way there. Replies are a welcome surprise and a helpful indication of the clarity I seek.

What I'm trying to say is, if our "listening" is a help in any way, don't hesitate. That's what we're here for!

Dave

[Darby]

If you dont mind my asking, what exactly is your neighbor doing ? Your post was a little vague on that count.

Some details might enable some cogent advice on noise ordinances, etc.

As for myself, I rarely hear my neighbors, because I listen to music radio all day, and TV/Netflix most of the night. Sleeping with chronic pain has also trained me, mentally, to ignore most ordinary sounds while sleeping ... my subconscious seems to automatically filter it out. N00bs can easily acquire similar ability by learning to sleep with white noise or nature sounds (I love ocean noises for instance, since I grew up on the water), and gradually upping the volume.

EDIT: crossed posts with faradave, who asked the same thing. ;-)

[Paralith]

I believe zetreque is referring to this:

viewtopic.php?f=117&t=29031

[Braininvat]

For what it's worth, I find that a nap if convenient is worth double its time. So, for me a 1 hour nap + 6 hours at night works as well as 8 hours at night.

-- Faradave


I had to reply to this. I have found exactly the same thing, with precisely the same hours that you indicate for nap plus night sleep. I'm not sure I've met anyone else this works for. My significant bother has tried this, but reports the day nap just leaves her feeling groggy and worse off, unless she extends it to 2-3 hours, a span that is often not practical for her. I do get a bit of a nap hangover sometimes, after the one hour nap, but it usually evaporates in 15 minutes and then I'm refreshed for the rest of the day. It seems to me that a fairly low caffeine intake is needed for the afternoon nap system to work.

Back to topic: I was gone all last week. No one noticed, due to the careful deployment of brief and vacuous postings that simulated presence.

[Darby]

I was gone all last week. No one noticed.

I almost greeted you as a new member just now ... whew, that was close.

[BioWizard]

My significant bother

Funny typo of Freudian slip? :]

[Darby]

Male, therefore closer to a Jungian Thong.

[Braininvat]

My significant bother

Funny typo of Freudian slip? :]

Posters at the old NY Times forums coined this phrase - often shortened to "sigboth." It's inherent accuracy makes it a meme that's hard to resist.

Not a Jungian thong. Or a Maslovian codpiece.

[Marshall]

I mentioned the Jung and Maslow items of underwear to my neighbor and she suggested
Horney bra

I didn't know of Karen Horney, pronounced hor NAI not HOR nee
It seems she was one of the early Freudian psychoanalysts and worked at a Berlin Institute etc etc. But somehow she got her own "neo" ideas about psychoanalysis and Freud excommunicated her for heresy. I think that's what my neighbor was telling me. Latter half of her career was in the USA.

[Darby]

Sorry to have been AWOL ... health issues, plus two funerals.

Probably need a few days to get caught up.

[Braininvat]

BTW, where are you, Darby? We were talking about some Kepler data, the star with the weird "dipping event" and your absence was noticed.

[Faradave]

I should make my own apologies. I got quite preoccupied preparing for a test last month (which I passed) but in doing so, many other tasks and family obligations got procrastinated. I'm aiming to be back regularly by end Oct. I peek occasionally but must resist the urge to poke.

I miss my friends here.

[vivian maxine]

Watching a friend go is a hard thing to go through, Darby, and there is no way to ease it. Chin up and be good to yourself.

[Braininvat]

Thanks for looking in the door, Farad!

[Braininvat]

dlorde, Darby, Eclogite, Faradave -- what's it like, outside the Matrix?

[Faradave]

what's it like, outside the Matrix?

Lonely, but that's not the worst of it. On the Nebuchadnezzar, the only thing Darby feeds us is Tasty Wheat, out of a spigot! It's what's for dinner (and breakfast and lunch).

[dlorde]

-- what's it like, outside the Matrix?

Scary. Big, powerful machines control almost everything; sometimes it feels like they're out to get us.

Can't talk - this line may be monitored...

[Eclogite]

-- what's it like, outside the Matrix?

Oil hovers around $50 a barrel. My team has been cut by 50% since January. I'm hanging on by my finger nails and working to get five gallons out of a two pint jug. Other than that, all is well.

[Braininvat]

Nice to hear from some of the irregulars. It would be great to boost site activity with Château Margaux and rib eye steaks, but I understand the hunger for authentic Tasty Wheat.

[Paralith]

Hmm. Does that mean Braininvat thinks (knows?!?) the rest of us are in the Matrix?

[dlorde]

Nice to hear from some of the irregulars. It would be great to boost site activity with Château Margaux and rib eye steaks, but I understand the hunger for authentic Tasty Wheat.

Thanks for the prod in the ribs, Braininvat. I've been spending time on other forums, as I tend to do - like a slow & heavy bee trundling from flower to flower, spending several months at each. But I'm just beginning to get bored with my current lot, so I may well be back soon...