April 26, 2024<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It sounds greedy and ungrateful, but a month hasn\u2019t been enough time for me to clear my brain. Having no appointments has been nice, but I have had some on and off pain lately.\u00a0 Mostly though, it\u2019s just hard for me to put all this out of my head reliably. It\u2019s the predicament that I\u2019m in most often. I want to know more but then again, I don\u2019t really want to know more. That makes no sense, but it is how I feel.\u00a0 I want to get tests and find out where I am and what more needs to be done and other things, but then again there\u2019s a part of me that doesn\u2019t want to hear any more about it. Ever. My brain usually keeps me on what I feel like is the right track of keeping up with things, and when it doesn\u2019t, usually something in my body will remind me that there\u2019s still more work to do. So, I guess that\u2019s good. With stuff like this, it\u2019s hard to keep my brain from jumping from topic to topic whenever it sees fit. My sleep has been thrown off for a couple weeks now. That doesn\u2019t help a lot either. At least, I am able to usually get some control over my brain and guide it to and from various topics, so I don\u2019t spend too much time in places that aren\u2019t useful. So many pretty days recently and I feel bad because sometimes the best I can do in a day is exist. It feels like I should be doing more even though I know these aren\u2019t normal times. There is lots of stuff to do, but I\u2019m usually lucky to get one thing or so done outside my regular routine. Cancer takes a lot from you and isn\u2019t very good about giving any of it back without a fight. I\u2019ve found it hard to put it out of my head when I get daily reminders that it\u2019s still with me. Thankfully, the pain has been more occasional than regular. However, I have a constant numbness in the length of my toes and my fingertips possibility stemming from the chemo pills last month. April 26, 2024 It sounds greedy and ungrateful, but a month hasn\u2019t been enough time for me to clear my brain. Having no appointments has been nice, but I have had some on and off pain lately.\u00a0 Mostly though, it\u2019s just hard for me to put all this out of my head reliably. It\u2019s the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"blocksy_meta":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gassett.info\/david\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gassett.info\/david\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gassett.info\/david\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gassett.info\/david\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gassett.info\/david\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=811"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/gassett.info\/david\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":814,"href":"https:\/\/gassett.info\/david\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811\/revisions\/814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gassett.info\/david\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gassett.info\/david\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gassett.info\/david\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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So, in an attempt to distract my brain, I\u2019ve forced myself to open and turn the pages in a book that will challenge, if not overload said brain, where it\u2019s less likely to remind me of the things I\u2019ve mentioned above. It\u2019s the first, Six Easy Pieces<\/em>, of a set of books from Richard Feynman\u2019s<\/a> freshman intro physics courses<\/a> in the 60\u2019s. I assume there are six parts in it (haven\u2019t counted) but so far, I wouldn\u2019t say it\u2019s easy in the least. Which is exactly what I need and why I\u2019ve continued to force myself to pick it up when I don\u2019t necessarily want to. There have been a few good well-constructed parts though. Like a couple parts about the size of atoms.
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\u201c\u2026if an apple is magnified to the size of the earth, then the atoms in the apple are approximately the size of the original apple.\u201d Six Easy Pieces<\/em> p. 5
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and
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\u201cIf we had an atom and wished to see the nucleus, we would have to magnify it until the whole atom was the size of a large room, and then the nucleus would be a bare speck which you could barely make out with the eye, but very nearly all the weight of the atom is in that infinitesimal nucleus.\u201d Six Easy Pieces<\/em> p. 34
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But I also have to admit there are parts that my brain has definitely skimmed over and not fully absorbed. Again, definitely good for me even in that way, because I would naturally want to force myself to look that stuff up and understand it better. I also know that would just lend itself to me not getting around to that and never picking the book up again.\u00a0 Years ago, I read Surely You\u2019re Joking, Mr. Feynman (Adventures of a Curious Character)<\/a><\/em> and it originally piqued my interest enough that I actually took a calculus based physics<\/a> class in college where I did very poorly on the classwork but really enjoyed the lab part (not so much the log book) and playing with all the toys that were connected to various computers. I\u2019d probably still do poorly, but I\u2019d go back and play with all that stuff again in a heartbeat. There has been a special place for the science of physics in me ever since.
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Randomness:\u00a0 Got some sun on the back patio with my work clothes on while typing some of this. Add to my working outfit my old grey\/orange New Balance 481 which were replaced by my new grey\/orange New Balance 481 which replaced my previous grey\/orange New Balance 481 (I can\u2019t remember, but I\u2019ve had a lot of pairs of this shoe through all its versions) which I believe finally ended their run a while ago and present somewhat of a crisis when I have to think about finding a new model\/colors of shoe. But my latest ones are fairly new, so, that along with my tendency to wear them out, should put that crisis off for a bit, and no, I don\u2019t believe I\u2019ll ever give in to actual white New Balance shoes.
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It\u2019s cool that cats and dogs kinda know how doors work. They don\u2019t go to the wrong sides and such. I just noticed one day that they anticipate and come and go through the right sides even before I open them up.
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Ceiling fans are the best especially as it starts to warm up in the South. My latest streaming adventure is How Do They Do It?<\/a><\/em> It\u2019s pretty much just a combination of the other shows I watch that describes some process of how things are used or made. The name seems a little awkward to me, but I\u2019ve tried my best to move past it even though they insist on saying and showing it multiple times during each show. Some good ones so far have been earthquake-proof buildings<\/a>, cowboy hats<\/a>, desalinating seawater<\/a>, assembly line robots<\/a>, manufacturing propellers<\/a>, soy sauce<\/a>, and cruise ships<\/a>. We finished the Fallout series on Prime and really enjoyed it. Really hoping for and can\u2019t wait for a second season already. We are still working our way toward the 12th and final season of Big Bang Theory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"