Archive: January 2006

The Danen's wish you all the best for 2006.

Is it time for gardening yet? While we enjoy unseasonably warm temperatures, we have about four more months of winter. Here is a site that shows weather data: weatherbase.com. Note that you can choose Fahrenheit or Celsius, and you can also search for your own city.

Considering the health issues I've been dealing with the last couple of years, and most recently my heart, I have resolved to reduce stress where I can.
For example, I had taken on the role of webmaster for our lily society about four months ago. If there had been a proper project plan, that would be ok, but there was not and I ended up redoing a lot of work. Granted we are all volunteers, but we are also supposed to be professionals. I no longer want to expose myself to this kind of stress. Nothing personal, but I have to make some life choices...
I still love to volunteer, but I will need more structure when I take on projects.
When I go back to work in a non-management role, I expect less stress too. I'd rather take a demotion than kill myself.
Speaking of going back to work, I think I mentioned before that my GP is not allowing me to go back to work until more tests are done.

Just noticed a TV ad for Coreg, the meds that just got increased for me to slow my heart rate. Good to see my docs are up-to-date...

After getting an ECG where the heart rate was 80, and then later in the doctor's office where the rate was 72, I'm still sitting at the high end of the good range (60-72).
I will see the doctor again in 10 days during which time he hopes to arrange for cardiac rehab sessions.
On we go...

Spent a lot of time chasing people for illegal use of a photo from my website. Canadian Auto Press licenses material to various websites and newspapers. A photo I took in October 2002 ended up in one of their articles in 2003. Found it on two sites and they both implicated CAP. They have since apologized and pulled it from the sites.

Spent the afternoon shopping with Janet. We both could do with a diversion, so we went to Van's for some Dutch treats, then to the Italian store, across the river to a German store, and finally a Chinese store. Found edible lilies at the Chinese store. They are called Lanzhou Lilies, which are Lilium Davidii Var. Unicolor (hoog) Cotton and are grown in the Gansu province of north central China.

Must be snow coming or something, my back's been aching all day...
Spoke with Chad from ManuLife this morning. He finally got around to my email from last week Monday. After the routine interrogation, he said he was going to get back to me today about extending benefits. So far he hasn't...

Heard from the Glenrose today, and I start cardiac rehab on January 31st. It's a six-week program, twice a week for a few hours.

This past week I've been busy excercising, mucking with my new web server, talking to my doctor and insurance adjuster, and listening to Dutch radio on the Internet (thanks Phil).
I even went to the office to help a co-worker with a programming project.
I have been doing a lot of learning about various aspects of running a web server. I have gotten brave and started doing "dangerous stuff" and promptly got myself into trouble. Ran out of disk space during a backup and locked the server up tight. Good thing my son was around to bail me out.

Got to tell you some more about this Dutch Internet radio channel. It's called Uden Centraal and it will play back through iTunes, RealPlayer (Phil?) and likely Windows Media Player.
Thank you again, Phil, for sending the link to me. It's not even the occasional Dutch song that attracts me, it's more the oldies I used to listen to in Holland. The old French and German songs...
Isn't nostalgia a funny thing. Nothing to do with who you are or where you were born. Just what you were exposed to in your early years.
Funny, at 10:30pm my time, 6:30am in Holland, the songs get really weird. It's Dutch, but, yech... Muziekanten, something... Noisy music but no intelligent lyrics.
It's supposed to get better at 7am.
To find it, go to http://www.shoutcast.com/ and under "Comprehensive Genre List" find the Oldies genre. Then search for "Uden".
Enjoy!

Uden Centraal has a chat line too. Very nice people to chat with.
Put in some requests and they were played within several minutes... Cool!!!

Could not get the dang van going this evening. Shoot...

The car trouble turned out to be a faulty cell in the battery. The AMA driver put a new battery in, tested it, and everything is back to normal.

We have a new government, a Conservative one this time, with Steven Harper as the new prime minister. It may be a minority government, but at least it's not Liberal. Just my opinion... :)

I am just curious what all the cheering for the NDP is for... Jack Layton is sure taking up a lot of air time... I guess he will be making up the extra seats in a minority government.

Interesting to see it's colder in Holland than here in Edmonton... I'm NOT complaining! :)

Interesting article was sent to me by Phil:

Emotions and the heart
Recent HeartMath studies define a critical link between the heart and brain. The heart is in a constant two-way dialogue with the brain — our emotions change the signals the brain sends to the heart and the heart responds in complex ways. However, we now know that the heart sends more information to the brain than the brain sends to the heart. And the brain responds to the heart in many important ways. This research explains how the heart responds to emotional and mental reactions and why certain emotions stress the body and drain our energy. As we experience feelings like anger, frustration, anxiety and insecurity, our heart rhythm patterns become more erratic. These erratic patterns are sent to the emotional centers in the brain, which it recognizes as negative or stressful feelings. These signals create the actual feelings we experience in the heart area and the body. The erratic heart rhythms also block our ability to think clearly.

and

Benefits come from being appreciative
The feeling of appreciation is one of the most concrete and easiest positive emotions for individuals to self-generate and sustain for longer periods. Almost anyone can find something to genuinely appreciate. By simply recalling a time when you felt sincere appreciation and recreating that feeling, you can increase your heart rhythm coherence, reduce emotional stress and improve your health.

Read the entire article...

Finally starting to get over the cold I caught last Monday. It's true what they say about Buckley's, it tastes like crap but it does the job.

Went for my first session today, two introductory/orientation sessions. Got a bunch of reading material and a schedule that takes me until March 23rd. Tomorrow bloodwork, Thursday a nutrition class. Next week some more classes and a meeting with the nurse. The 13th is my stress test and exercices start on the 15th.