We love that we get trick-or-treaters in our neighborhood here in Texas. The last several places we lived were isolated enough that we would get between zero and less than you can count on one hand. Lorena LOVES to hand out the candy and hovers by the door to make sure she misses no one. Tonight it is pretty cool so most of the kids are bundled up enough that it is hard to see their costume. What is also pretty cool is that a lot of the people in the neighborhood have golf carts with trailers so they are able to haul the kids around to all the houses.
I went to check out the house we are remodeling on the top level of streets on Cerro de las Mitras in San Pedro. When I went to the street view, it showed a new image of the house (taken June 2023) that includes some of the work Lynn has done on it. Pretty cool. He plans to start working on it a lot more now that the apartments a few blocks down the hill are almost complete.
Christian is scheduled to present the research from his work to at the 2023 Asilomar Conference on Signals, Systems, and Computers (ACSSC 2023) this morning. The title of his presentation is “Online Null Adaption on a Digital Controllable Reflectarray Receiver.” He has been working on this work for quite a while now, but it is finished and he has now moved on to something new. He took the seven hour flight (SEVEN HOURS!!!!) from Boston to San Francisco, then drove down to the conference center in time for the first plenary talk yesterday. Of course, he stopped by In-N-Out for an “animal style” hamburger on the drive down.
The temperature has stayed in the forties all day with lots of wind and abundant rain. Lorena thought rightly that today would be a good day for a fire in the fireplace. I concurred completely. I am working on an assignment for my professor, Troy, at University of Nebraska so am not getting the total benefit yet, but am looking forward to reading my book and warming my feet with a hot cup of decaf (cocoa would be better, but that is definitely not in my nutrition plan. We have plans to use the fireplace a lot this year.
Maybe it is because we are approaching Halloween that I am thinking about these things, but it is magnified by a spiritual decline in the west and around the world that provokes a strong sense of foreboding. The spirit of the current age is very different from anything I have experienced in my lifetime. Paganism is on the rise in the west, even to the displacement of the Enlightenment informed atheism that was in ascendancy for so many years. Cultural Christianity is in steep decline. The war in Ukraine is/was disconcerting, but the new war in Israel has distinct apocalyptic overtones–especially with the saber rattling of Turkey and Russia in conjunction with the already heavy Iranian involvement that evokes remembrances of Biblical prophecy. The response around the world to all this seems demonic. Right now I am reading through the Old Testament, just finishing Joshua and starting into Judges this morning. The Old Testament narrative arc culminates in a cataclysmic end and new beginning with fierce spiritual warfare. Now is not the time to be complacent.
One of my favorite parts of Lorena’s trip to Cambridge to visit Christian was that they went down to a pumpkin patch and the liked it so much they went back again. Christian got a pumpkin and carved it up for Halloween. It came out great. We used to do this every year and we really ought to take it up again. The art of pumpkin carving is way underrated. But that was not all. When Lorena showed me the pictures I remembered how cool he has his apartment set up. It is pretty small, but also pretty amazing in terms of both style and utility. The best part was the end product.
We ate the three figs we thought were the yearly harvest of Christian’s very pathetic little fig tree about a month ago. Lorena was out looking at it this morning and hollered at me to go out and look at it. It has more than doubled in size and now has an additional four figs growing on it. We are pretty inspired with the thing right now. We still miss our apple, pear, peach, and plum trees from Washington, but boy are we enjoying this. We need to trim it up a little so it looks more like a tree than a bush, but it seems like we are on a good trajectory.
Lorena brought me this spectacular linen shirt Christian got me for my birthday. LOVE it. It looks OK now, but will look even better when I am down another ten pounds. I am going to show it off for the first time at Thanksgiving, but my main plan is to get some nice, new jeans and wear them to my graduation in December. Christian truly is a thoughtful man. I am just thankful he is my son. Can’t wait to see both Kelly, Christian, Conchita, and our old friends Ralph and Olivia from Atlanta via Sweden. Maybe Ralph will not look down on me for my lack of Euro-trash clothes!!!
Lorena flew home from Boston this morning. I have no idea how I survive when she is gone. She flew JetBlue on a frequent flyer miles ticket which is a leftover from when I was flying between Portland or Seattle and Boston every 4-5 weeks until the pandemic hit and I got told to just work from home. WiFi is free on JetBlue so we could message each other. When they got to the airport the pilot came on and said they were going to do a loop around the airport and try again because the landing window was too tight. Loren was irritated by that, but I told her it is better to have to sit a little longer and land safely than take the risk. It is actually something for which to be thankful. We are already planning her next flight down to Monterrey, God willing. This trip should be just a short one as the whole purpose is to sign some papers on the real estate and pick up Grandma Conchita to come spend Thanksgiving with us.
I just got notice from the printing office at University of Nebraska–Lincoln that my dissertation print run has returned from the bindery and is ready for pick-up. Troy is going to run down there and grab them for me. It all feels pretty good and real now. I am very happy with how the dissertation turned out both in terms of content and the printing. I can hardly wait to get them signed and sent out to all the people who were so helpful to me.
Christian ran Lorena up through Maine and New Hampshire to see the leaves, a new lighthouse (Nubble Lighthouse in York, Maine) and chase down a hamburger from a “best of” list in Portsmouth. The leaves were only mediocre but the hamburger and the light house were nothing short of spectacular. I get to suffer through another three days here in Texas without Lorena, but it surely seems like she is having a great time. In the meantime, Christian got a new (to him) Surface Pro tablet that makes me think I want one myself. He got it just in time to take with him to be big conference on the west coast. It will give himself something to do on that six hour flight from Boston to California.
I ran into Granbury this morning to see if I could find myself a couple of books at the Hood County Librarybookstore and to have some lunch at Panda Express. Last weekend I went down to check out the library. It is a nice little community library and I liked it, but the bookstore was the real find who anyone looking airplane and Saturday afternoon novels to just escape for an hour or two of not so deep thought. I scored two of them for a sum total of $4 complete with dust covers! When I was heading out to the car, I noticed an old rock building that turned out to be a grist mill built in the late 1800’s that had been turned into a community art gallery and studio where they teach art classes. I talked to the people in the gallery, picked up a class schedule for Lorena, and headed back out to the car, but noticed a spectacular park behind with art gallery with lots of water a big fountain, bridges, trees, and wide walking paths. I cannot wait to show Lorena.
Oral creatine administration may improve short-term memory and intelligence/reasoning of healthy individuals but its effect on other cognitive domains remains unclear. Findings suggest potential benefit for aging and stressed individuals. Since creatine is safe, future studies should include larger sample sizes. It is imperative that creatine should be tested on patients with dementias or cognitive impairment.1
Christian said I should take a look at creatine monohydate as a possible supplement. Christian and my Ph.D. classmate and old friend, John S. have used it to help with their weightlifting. I need to get back to weightlifting as I get older, partially because it helps maintain bone density, but also because I like it. That might have been a reason to start taking the stuff all by itself, but when I watched a video on creatine Christian sent me, it talked about help for short term memory during age related cognitive decline. I looked into it. It is not completely clear yet, but there seems to be evidence that it helps. So I ordered a bottle from Walmart and am going to give it a try.
Avgerinos, Konstantinos I et al. “Effects of creatine supplementation on cognitive function of healthy individuals: A systematic review of randomized controlled trials.” Experimental gerontology vol. 108 (2018): 166-173. doi:10.1016/j.exger.2018.04.013↩︎
AFTER: View from the street toward the front of the house
Work is coming to an end at the apartment building, so the bulk of Lynn’s team has moved up the hill to work on the second remodel project. The first step was to clean up a large amount of debris created during the destructive part of the project. The view on the right is how it is now, after cleaning up the mess. Lynn says he can have it livable by December if we want to be in San Pedro for the holidays. That would be nice, but I am not holding my breath. It might be more realistic to hope for the holidays, but plan for something in the spring. Lynn has one big structural headache to solve to do the things he wants to do with the house. After that, he believes this remodel is profoundly more simple than the apartments. Really looking forward to seeing this project move forward now.
Lorena is totally a machine when it comes to her workouts. She NEVER misses one. She just sent me this image she took at the gym in Christian’s apartment building. Both Christian’s and Kelly’s apartment buildings have gyms with Concept 2 rowing machines. I was trying to figure out how many years she has been rowing and I think it goes all the way back to 2007 when we first moved to Raleigh. That means she has been rowing two to four times per week (sometimes she runs and she used to use an elliptical machine) for 45 minutes to an hour for the last 16 years. No wonder she is so healthy. I read an article a couple of months back that was titled “Exercise is the Best Medicine.” I believe that.
For my part, today I was down over twenty-five pounds when I started my latest health kick. The weight loss has started to slow down some, but that was expected. The one day per week fast and the daily intermittent fasting with long walks really has helped. It was a struggle getting started and it has taken longer than I remember when I was younger, but I seem to be on track now. My blood pressure was perfect when it was taken at the dentist appointment yesterday and that felt pretty good.
Lorena and Christian are having too much fun in Boston. There is no way I want to miss the next trip.The first thing they did is went further north into New England to pick apples, eat fresh-made donuts, and view the leaves. Supposedly, Lorena went there to give Christian a hand while he prepares for a conference where a paper will be published at the end of October, but it surely looks like they are having too much fun for that. The last thing they sent me was this steak and potatoes picture that certainly did not help my diet very much. Well, the whole crew should be here for Thanksgiving, so at least I have that to look forward to.
Work on the remodel of the house on the hill in San Pedro is about to accelerate. That work has been on somewhat of a hiatus due to the need to finish the work on the apartment remodel down below (but still with a great view). With that coming to an end, Lynn has started sending some of his team. Lynn has all the lease paperwork prepared and a list of potential tenants who want to rent the apartments, so he is checking credit, references, and all that stuff with the hope of getting people into the apartments sometime in November. After that, all of his people will be focused on getting enough of the house on the hill ready for Lorena and I to head there for a stay. There are four living areas: 1) Basement, 2) main floor, 3) second floor, and 4) an entertainment terrace on the roof called an azotea with restrooms, a kitchen, and a spectacular view. The hope is to finish the main floor and the azotea first so we can start visiting there while the rest of the place is finished.
With Lorena gone, I drove over to Granbury to check out the Hood County Library situated not to far from their historic town center. I LOVED it. It is a small library and probably more of community gathering place than a place to check out books, but they have an excellent little bookstore where you can buy books, very inexpensively, that people donate to support the library. When I went back there, I met three retired volunteers working there. They were very friendly and, just when I got there, they were all heading out to the parking lot to look at the eclipse with the special dark sunglasses you need to be able to do that. They asked me if I would like to see it, too, then kindly lent me a pair of glasses to take a look. That sight is ALWAYS amazing to see. On the way out of the library, I stopped by the desk to see if it was possible to get a library card even though we do not live in Hood County. They said, sure, but I could only check out 5 books at a time for three weeks and I could not use any of their online services. That was GREAT, so I got one and am quite pleased with myself.
On the way home, I picked up some gas and then bought a diet coke and a Kroger chicken breast for lunch. That was a good thing, too, because it got me out of the house. When Lorena is gone, I really get unmotivated (a bad thing) and this just taught me the lesson that I need to find an excuse, no matter how feeble, to get out of the house at least once every day. I did not have much of a plan when I first got up this morning, but now I have new good stuff to do.
I am envious of Lorena eating in Sommerville, Mass. at an Italian Restaurant in Davis Square named Posto. That is always our first stop when we visit Christian in Boston. I am sitting at home eating canned soup and wishing I was there with them. I think they are headed up to Maine to do some leaf watching tomorrow.
Lorena’s new Garmin Vívoactive 5 GPS (31st anniversary) watch arrived just in time for her trip to visit Christian in Cambridge for the next week and a half. I get to stay home here in Texas in my office and work. It is an AMAZING watch. I got my Garmin Instinct several years back with a black and white screen. Her watch has a longer battery life, more features, cost just a little bit less. I have to say I am envious, but I also have to say she deserves it way more than me. She still runs four and a half miles two times per week and 8k+ meters on the Concept 2 rower two times per week. She definitely will benefit from the fitness watch. It connects to her phone, keeps track of everything and is really quite fashionable, too.
