I am a published author…

All my life, penmanship has been a sore spot in my written communication. As a kid in school, I was lead to believe the heart of my written communication problems was my innate lack of writing ability. Thanks to a delayed start on college, I go to use a PC to write all term papers and upper-division lab reports. The difference between being able to edit with a word-processor (WordStar 3.3) and having to turn in hand-written was probably good for at least a one-letter grade improvement in classes requiring lots of papers.

My penmanship has improved slightly since then. Focusing on gratitude has helped me to realize a huge part of the problem is due to my lack of ‘mindfulness’ in paying attention to what I am doing. In hindsight, that same lack of mindfulness was an early indicator of substance abuse problems to come.

In October, I have used desktop publishing (edited?) to put together a 16 page booklet of short stories on gratitude, an article for a Western Washington Area newsletter on gratitude and another gratitude article for an Intergroup newsletter, along with this 27^th and last gratitude article for my blog. That is a lot of writing I would not have done without the miracle of PC word processing.

Being able to communicate via email with the world at large is a huge benefit in my relationships with others. Aside from a conference call put on by attorneys last week, I have not spoken with my sister in years. Thanks to email and this blog, we communicate now more than ever before in our lives.

I am grateful to be able to communicate via the written word and of having nearly eliminated the problem of poor penmanship thanks to relatively inexpensive word processing tools including PCs with MS Office or free word processing applications such as LibreOffice and Google Docs.

not snowing here

The Northeast States are under attack from one of the biggest earliest snowstorms on record. 3 million people are without power. The snowstorm is not so attractive. Just writing that gave me a shiver, well, that or the free strawberry Sunday from Burger King. The Sunday was yummy for the price.

Heck, hurricane season does not end until November 30^th. What kind of storm happens when a hurricane hits a snowstorm? My guess is that would be cold, wet, windy and miserable with flooding.

The next two days will be sunny and 50 degrees in Seattle. That is a lot easier for me to deal with than a foot of snow.

I am grateful for our mild weather in the Pacific Northwest.

[That does bring up a rant for the cartographically challenged: Why is this region called the PNW? We are on the NE corner of the Pacific Ocean—China, Russian and Japan on are the Pacific Northwest according to the maps I have looked at.. They don’t call the New England States the “Atlantic NorthWest”. /rant]

glad it is not me

I have a friend that I first met three years ago at a 12-step meeting.  We hardly ever talked beyond the occasional “hi”.  The second year we got to talking and became closer. 

After going to a bunch of meetings together, she got five months of sobriety at the age of 42.  She was unwilling to get a sponsor and work the steps.  That was followed by the almost inevitable relapse.  She has been back out drinking for 14 months now.

We were going to hang out for awhile today.  It was an unpleasant display of rage when after driving about 30 feet, she was yelling out at a little old lady that lived in next door and flipping her off for having the audicity to park by the cul-de-sac  community mailbox to get her mail. In a quarter mile, she had yelled at 2 other cars and made snippy remarks to passers-by at the grocery store.  I could tell we were not going to spend a lot of time together in public.

She needed to stop by her pregnant “friend’s” house in the Seattle Central District to check in on her for a few minutes.  We were almost there when she started yelling the n-word out my window at a pedestrian.  I let her know that it was neither appropriate nor acceptable to spew her racist hatred out my car window.  When 15 minutes become 30 minutes and she had the pregnant friend call to tell me that my friend was busy moving a microwave, I knew that it was a drug deal being waiting for the connection to happen and left her there.

My friend “D” is a smart talented woman who is terrified of getting sober and dying of acute late-stage alcoholism.  It was one of the saddest things I have seen in a long time.  D has suppurating wounds on her legs that will not heal due to her alcohol & fruit juice mixer diet.

I got a 15 over speeding ticket on my way home across the bridge.  Compared with dying a slow painful death from alcoholism, it was no big deal.  I got home and wrote a check for the ticket and put it in the mail. 

What I can’t get out of my mind is D’s being enslaved by her addictions.  I have been in a similar situation in my life.  12-step programs tell us to work with others to get out of ourselves, help them, and remember where we came from.  Just thinking about having a drink right now is enough to make my stomach queasy.

I have other friends and will make more friends in the future.  I miss my friend D.   She is dying a slow painful death in the only life she will have on this earth. 

I am grateful to be sober today. It is good that I know enough about addiction to realize with absolute certainty I can’t save my friend from a slow painful degrading suicide by alcohol poisoning, I am grateful for that knowledge and sad about the reality of the situation.  I am also grateful to have the money to simply pay my speeding ticket, not getting pulled over for drunk driving nor being busted for an open (alcohol) container in my car.  Thank you god for my sobriety today.

a rainy Fall Friday

Ran a few errands today.  The weather was overcast.  It looked like at worst it would rain in a damp sprinkle.  Went into Costco to take back a fan, pick up some printing and a few things for me and the cats.  While in the store, the skies broke open in a deluge.

Had a couple of stops after that to drop things off.  Fortunately for me, people were will to come outside and pick up the literature I had to drop off.

It is a bit oxymoronic not liking the rain and living in Western Washington.  I do like mild temperatures, fresh water and lots of green foliage with not to many bugs and no poisonous critters beyond a few reclusive spiders.  Plus, I can afford to live in a nice place here.   

I am grateful for the green forests, autumn leaves and fresh water provided by our bountiful supplies of rainy weather.

hanging with Carol

Carol took me to dinner at Café Durango tonight.  The food was cheap and delicious.  The service was incredibly poor for having two waiters and people eating at 3 tables.  The middle-aged guy was into the baseball game and the teenage girl did not seem to know how to: a) provide good customer service; b) know how to work the credit card machine & cash register.  They were pleasant enough, just not very timely or thoughtful of what we might want such as refilling my empty pop glass one of the 7 times she walked by it or giving us the check while we sat there patiently waiting for 15 minutes after dinner.  Yelp reviews warned of slow service, so we were not surprised.  We were not in a hurry so it was not a big thing, just appalling poor service.  How much training do you need to know when to refill an empty glass of pop?

We watched a couple of innings of what turned out to be one of the greatest thrillers in World Series history.  When we left, the Cardinals were down by 2 runs in the bottom of the 8^th inning.  The game went to 11 innings with the Cardinals finally pulling it out.  Now there will be a game 7 which is great for both fans and MLB—almost everybody likes cliffhanger drama in their sports results.

After dinner we went to Fry’s.  I bought computer parts that I had wanted all month.  Carol went shopping at the Target across the street while I was in Fry’s.  Our timing was nearly perfect.  I came out to the car with my purchases and saw her walking towards back to the car.  By the time I got my chair in the car, she was 20 feet away.

When I went to Canada last week, I had some loonies (Canadian money) left when I got to the duty-free store.  They only real buy there was liquor.  Carol is the only friend I have that drinks.  I bought her 2 liters of Vodka which I gave to her tonight as an early birthday present.  Her birthday is not until December 17^th.

I am grateful for good food, great baseball games, good friends, great stores such as Fry’s and a pleasant evening with a friend.

is it Schadenfreude when… ?

As a newcomer to the role of empathetic person/listener, I sometimes ponder the difference between a shared sorrow being half a sorrow (Swedish proverb) and the German concept of Schadenfreude which is enjoying others misery.  As I progress in my recovery, others share their pain with me in ways I never heard before.

Talking with a beloved friend at lunch today, we had a nice time.  As I was dropping her off at work after lunch, she shared a few things that were causing her pain and/or fear.  I felt honored that our relationship was such that she trusted me with her intimate emotional pain, let her know that I loved her and reassured her that she is doing the best she can which is actually pretty good.  I felt pride, love and empathy for my friend after our visit was over.

This evening I talked with a few other friends by phone that are not doing nearly so well and are not in the solution phase of problem solving.  They have mastered the problem identification phase of problem solving.  Practically all they do is wallow in, think about and count their problems based on what they tell me in our conversations.  After those conversations, I was grateful that it was not me with their problems and unwillingness to implement obvious well known solutions such as when your doctor tells you to check into the ER, you go to the hospital and check into the ER.

Through some sort of moral wisdom, I am learning to check my motives when talking with friends about our troubles in a way that allows me to have compassion and empathy, while maintaining a healthy level of loving detachment.

What does this all have to do with Schadenfreude?  I don’t exactly know but am grateful I get to use whatever words I want in the title of my gratitude blogs!  J

I am grateful that I can listen to others share their sorrow with me today without having to take on their pain.

a productive day

Thanks to my intermittent sleep patterns, I was up at six this morning.  Nothing new there.  The bonus part was that I wrote a 1.5 page article for the local intergroup newsletter celebrating November as Gratitude Month.

After hitting for the cycle (MLB’s World Series is tied 2-2 for the Rangers-Cardinals matchup) of checking email, web surfing, reading a Kindle book, watching torrents, I got some more sleep and worked on an email that I will send out to 70+ friends inviting them to join me on SuperBetter.  I chatted by phone with several friends, cleaned my apartment and went to a different meeting tonight with Leslee.

I bought parts for new PC a month ago.  I saved the boxes in case I needed to take something back.  It has been almost 30 days which is the time limit for returns.  So I threw the boxes into the recycling with Leslee’s help and dumped the trash.  It feels good to have a living that is not strewn with a score of cardboard boxes and liners.  Now I have room to buy more PC parts to build a dedicated Home Theater PC to replace the HP laptop that works okay but really lacks the graphics power needed to make the HiDef movies play smoothly.

Part of having a better life is learning how to better reward myself for tasks completed.  Clean the living room, get more toys.  I have wanted a powerful HTPC for 5+ years.  Waiting for better components and reduced prices while using a laptop might not have been the first class solution, but it was at least a nice coach or business class solution. 

There is a new TV show called “Pan Am” on Sunday nights now.  My dad was a Pan Am pilot for 33 years.  They did not have Business Class back in the days of 707s.  While I have not flown on a jet in 20 years, from what I read about flying now, it is nothing like how it used to be.

I am rambling now.  Time to wrap it up.  It was a good day.  I even got a tiny bit if exercise and ate a spinach salad for dessert.

I am grateful for good days where I complete tasks while enjoying the process of working on them aka being in “flow” per Seligman in Flourish.  Especially when the results are trash dumped, rooms cleaned, time for more fun projects and feeling good about my day.

SuperBetter

SuperBetter is an interesting combination of social media, positive psychology and game theory to make an entertaining online ‘game’ to change our behaviors.  I heard about it on NPR and was fortunate enough to get a Beta invite.  Once I practice up a bit more, I will invite all my friends to be an “Ally” with me to work with the forces of good, triumph over evil and make my world a better place for all who share it with me.

I am grateful for sophisticated websites that write my gratitude stories for me!  J

https://www.superbetter.com/page/superbetter_story

SUPERBETTER STORY

A wise person once asked:

"Some say that heroes are born and not made, that heroism is a matter of fate. But if heroes are made, who — or what — makes them?"

We believe heroes make themselves — when they find the courage to pursue their goals even in the face of an extraordinary challenge. SuperBetter is the start of YOUR heroic journey — to build up your courage, discover your hidden strengths, and team up with powerful allies.

Getting SuperBetter

SuperBetter is a game that helps you recover from any illness or injury -- or achieve any health goal — by increasing your personal resilience. Resilience means staying curious, optimistic and motivated even in the face of the toughest challenges.

SuperBetter creates a private, online space where your closest friends and family become allies in your adventure toward health and wellness. The game is played in two parts: First, a set of 7 guided missions that create the foundation for your journey. Then, an open-ended, self-guided adventure that you play with your family and friends in the real world-not a virtual environment-in an effort to achieve your health goals.

We believe that instead of being diminished by obstacles in our way, we can grow stronger-much stronger. In fact, science tells us that dramatic, positive changes can occur in our lives as a direct result of facing an extreme challenge-whether it be coping with a serious illness, daring to quit smoking, or dealing with depression. We call this getting SuperBetter!

The Science of SuperBetter

SuperBetter is powered by the science of positive emotion and social connection. Every mission in the game is directly inspired by leading-edge research in psychology, neuroscience and medicine — research that helps us understand how we can increase our ability to become stronger and more successful in the face of challenges and the pursuit of our goals.

SuperBetter combines this ground-breaking science with compelling gameplay to create a paradigm-shifting system that will change the way the world thinks about health, healing and wellness.

As you play SuperBetter, you'll have the option to learn more about this science — so you can understand exactly how and why SuperBetter works (and share these breakthrough insights with your friends and family!)

How it all began...

In the summer of 2009, Social Chocolate's Creative Director, Jane McGonigal, found herself struggling to recover from a severe concussion. Overwhelmed with the process of recovery, she decided to tackle the challenge of healing with the method she knew best - creating and playing games. To help her brain heal, she invented SuperBetter -- and became its first player. Within a few weeks, she was feeling better and recovering faster than she'd ever thought possible.

After her successful recovery, Jane shared the rules of the game online and they spread like wildfire. She started receiving messages from people all over the world describing how they were using SuperBetter in their own lives-to help them lose weight, recover from a knee injury, get through chemotherapy, quit smoking, deal with auto-immune disease, survive heartbreak, overcome migraines, and even find a new job.

These stories are the true inspiration behind SuperBetter-which is now being developed as the first public offering from Social Chocolate.

A Worldchanging Game Company

Social Chocolate is a social venture based in San Francisco. We're creating world changing games powered by the science of positive emotion and social connection. Our team is made up of leading game designers, entrepreneurs, social innovators and scientists. Meet the Social Chocolate team!

Interested in helping the world get SuperBetter?

We're looking for a handful of great partners help us test SuperBetter in both medical environments (clinics and hospitals) and organizational environments (organizations, schools and communities). Let's join forces! Have another idea for collaborating? Let us know!

Here's how to Contact Us.

(And if you'd like to help us spread the SuperBetter story, we're happy to provide interviews and press kits.)

Now that you know the story behind SuperBetter, sign up to play.

glad it's not me

I have a friend that is dying of late-stage alcohol abuse.   Her health is falling apart with swollen legs, wounds that won’t heal, daily bouts of morning nausea, and not able to eat/digest solid food.

She has a prescription for anti-nausea medication that she chooses to not buy so she can spend her money on alcohol instead.   I was going to take her out to dinner the other night.  Within a few blocks, she had become so hostile that dinner was clearly not going to happen.  Once I confirmed we would not be going to dinner, she calmed down.  A few blocks later and she was again able to hold a civil conversation.

Alcoholism is a brutal disease with a slow painful way to die and a shame-laden way to live.   I feel compassion and empathy for my friend.  I can’t spend much time with her due to her inability to process (emotional) issues any other way than to become hostile about some random topic as a way to preclude further discussion and/or evaluation of events and triggers.

One powerful positive direct effect of spending time with my dying alcoholic friend is that it provides mass positive reinforcement for me to work a program with a lifestyle that helps me diligently work a program of recovery willing to go to any length to avoid getting caught up in an active cycle of substance abuse.

I am grateful for my recovery today and for those that provide a good example of a bad situation helping me to stay sober one day at a time.

a replacement Kindle

The screen died on my 8-month old Kindle last week.  I called Amazon.com customer service at 4 AM (I am often awake during the middle of the night) and got a replacement ordered in about 5 minutes. 

The replacement Kindle arrived yesterday.  Transferred my books over from the dead Kindle to the new Kindle using my PC mouse & USB connector in a couple of minutes.  Boxed up the old Kindle, printed off the free shipping RMA label, taped that on the box and will drop it off at the Post Office tomorrow. 

The entire process could not have been easier.  All told, that is less time than driving the 15 minutes to Fry’s in Renton much, less having to wait in line for at least 15 more minutes and then talk with the returns clerk—during regular business hours which can entail some nasty 405 traffic depending on the time & idiots needing to play crash-test dummies.

Amazon provides a level of customer service that most businesses can only fantasize about.  Combined with lower prices and deliver right to my front door, you know they are kicking the sales & customer loyalty crap out of most B&M stores.  The B&M stores do have instant gratification of going to the store, looking at what they have and then buying items right now.  Even so, B&M stores will have to greatly improve their customer service skills to compete.   While Fry’s is still a pain to return items to, they are orders of magnitude improved from what they used to be like just 5 years ago.

I am grateful for the awesome prices and customer service from Amazon along with the immense price & customer service quality competition they put on the rest of the shopping/sales eco-system.

an overnight trip to Vancouver BC

Went to Vancouver BC for an overnight vacation.  Learned a couple of things on this trip. 

The first lesson was that my passport that I had never used expired last month—they last ten years. 

Another lesson was when at the Canadian border and they ask “where are you going?”  “Canada” is not the information being sought.  :)

The third lesson is if you have a choice of car colors to drive to Canada, don’t take the red car.

The fourth lesson was even though the HP Notebook says the battery is fully charged, bring the power cord anyway.  Apparently the HP batteries needs to be ‘calibrated’ on a periodic basis that is much shorter than 18 months.  My notebook died with no warning after about 20 minutes use on a battery that registered fully charged when I left.

Priceline was a good deal using the bidding system.  I got a room at a Holiday Inn in downtown Vancouver for just under 50% of the listed rate.

I had the perception the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) agent that interviewed me was fairly new to the job.  She flagged the senior citizens in front of me for a more thorough inspection and then also had me ‘pull over’ for more directions.  By the time I got inside the customs office, she had been relieved of duty and was walking inside the office with a less than pleasant demeanor.  I felt sorry for her. 

The in-depth customs quiz by the Canadians felt like a big piece of security theater to keep the US government happy.  What do retired Americans senior citizens smuggle into Canada using passenger vehicles?  There is nothing that I can think of.   I am sure they have CBSA has a quota of pulling over X number of cars per day so they can report mission accomplished to their ICE counterparts at US Homeland Security.

While I was in the CBSA office undergoing further scrutiny, I was well-aware that I would soon been on my way.   It felt good to know that I would not be locked up in some corrupt third world jail while being extorted for money.

I like our kind, pleasant and respectful neighbors to the North.  I wish that we were more like them.  They did not let bankers destroy their economy with a housing bubble.  A casual observation of simply counting dump trucks showed BC hard at work with construction project.  There was even a commercial on CTV for jobs at a Rio Tinto mine—I have not seen a TV commercial for jobs in the US for years. 

The Canadian drivers I saw were a lot more thoughtful and efficient than US drivers.  On the freeway, they would move to the right lane to let faster traffic by.  It was a little weird on the US side of the border headed home in that drivers with BC plates no longer bothered to let faster traffic by.   I wondered if these drivers might be living in the US and lost their Canadian kindness while living with the Yanks.

I am grateful for the ability to get great rates on hotels using the internet/PriceLine, having well-mannered English speaking people living 100 miles north of me in a foreign country and for warm sunny Fall days.  Stanley Park is awesome.

life in general

Once again stuck for a topic, tonight I will write about my day being okay even though there is nothing I feel motivated to write about.  One thing I have learned to do is keep doing those things that I want to get better at no matter how I feel towards doing that activity at the moment.

Upon further reflection, a highlight for today was being invited to teach a “Telos” continuing education class Spring Quarter at Bellevue College based on the book Flourish by M. Seligman.   The exciting part was not about the big pay of being a part-time instructor at a local college (although that does sound cool), but to find a group of like-minded people willing to discuss concepts and plans for improving the well-being of individuals and members of our community as a whole.

I am grateful for even an average Monday still being pretty good.

all that jazz

Last night, Carol and I went to dinner at Boxley’s in North Bend.  Boxley’s has live jazz 7 nights a week.  We got there are 6 and the show started promptly at 7.  We had a delicious dinner after a fun extended discussion with the manager/waitress over combinatorial menu possibilities. Danny the owner chatted us up after he seated us at our table.  Boxley was a timber magnate in East King County and the name-sake of the ill-fated Boxley Creek and of Boxley’s Restaurant.

The food was delicious; the service was both excellent and friendly.  The jazz singer, Kelly Eisenhour, was amazing.  It was a wonderful 4-hour dinner and show.

I am grateful for good friends and good times at wonderful local places.

a new attitude

My mother Beverly has dementia likely caused by Alzheimer’s and also dementia from a stroke that she can’t remember having.  After 7 years with no contact and very little contact in the last 13 years, I have visited her once a week in the upscale assisted living facility which she moved into 5 months ago.

Last week, she was the most pleasant I had seen her in decades.  Today she was more of her usual mean and nasty self. I gave her a copy of Flourish with the intention of reading It out loud with her on the negative attitude days like today.  She lives in a one bedroom apartment with a living room and kitchen.  It is not that big a place, but I could not find the book Flourish.  It was short visit.  I will bring another copy of Flourish with me next week.

She was also diagnosed as having a strong streak of paranoia.  My sister Karen and I started a Guardian Ad Litem (GAL) process to protect our mother from herself and others that prey on the vulnerable elderly.  Beverly is doggedly convinced that Karen started the GAL process to steal her money from her.   Today I explained to Beverly several times that it was my idea to do the GAL process and that I had to talk Karen into it.  Beverly did not so much refuse to believe what I told her about the GAL process being my idea as she simply blanked out what I said from her mind with a powerful highly practiced sense of denial.  It was like she literally did not hear me.  Beverly continued to state that we doing this “to her” in an effort to take her money and could not begin to grasp the concept that we were doing it “for her” in an effort to protect her money because nobody wants Beverly running out of money and having to live with one of her children.

It used to be that every time I visited with Beverly, I would have to expound (vent?) on the experience at my Friday night 12-step meeting for family and friends of alcoholics.  Tonight I did not even mention my experience with Beverly today.  Instead I talked about the positive experiences in my week when interacting with friends, acquaintances and strangers.  I had a good week and was able share my gratitude for my new attitude with passion.  It was nice to get positive feedback from others after the meeting when they thanked me for sharing my positive perspective.

I am grateful for my new attitude.  I worked hard to acquire this attitude of gratitude, don’t take it for granted and explain it best to myself as being blessed with a god-given miracle.

kicked out of prison

On the second Thursday of the month, I go to a 12-step meeting at the local prison.  The vast majority of the time, the process of getting walked in goes reasonably.  Tonight we got all way into the door of the meeting rooms by a route I had not taken in five years.  That route takes an extra 5 locked doors and a locked elevator.  It always reminded me to the opening from the old TV show Get Smart.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElqZms_SUjg

Once we got to the door of the meeting room, the four of us going to the meeting were told that the meeting was canceled due to a once-a-year conflict with a religious program that goes on for three days.  The four of us took it with amazing grace and turned around to head home.

My two friends that rode out there with me joined me in an animated conversation on the way home as we took the scenic route (in the dark).   It was a nice drive and a great conversation.  The amazing part of being turned away was that none of us showed the least sign of ill-mannered disappointment.

I am grateful for happy friends with little drama in their lives—although we all know others with a high level of insanity going on in their lives.  It is a bit like being behind bullet-proof glass in a fortress on high ground in a hurricane.  We are safe, but it looks pretty crazy out there and nobody is clamoring to get outside and mix it up in the storm.  J

no longer “terminally unique”

Most of my life I felt terminally unique, which is a recovery catch-phrase for being sure that nobody else has deal with the terrible crap that I have to endure on daily basis.  It is a complex issue and more complicated than I want to address here.  At the very least, being terminally unique has a large component of self-pity.

Years of recovery had mitigated my sense of terminal uniqueness to a large extent, but it was still a tangible part of my psyche.  Writing and focusing on gratitude this year has literally been a miracle in reducing my remaining sense of terminal uniqueness.

Today an attractive woman at the table next to us at Crossroads Mall looked to be in some pain.  After talking and reading with my friend for an hour, he left and I went over to talk with her.  I complimented her platinum blonde hair with a cute streak of pink running down her right temple.  She thanked me for the compliment and I asked if she was okay.  It turned out that she had issues with being in public places and shutting herself off from others.

We spent the next half hour discussing causes, conditions and treatments of dysfunctional survival mechanisms.  We had the same problem for opposite reasons.  As an old balding overweight guy in a wheelchair, I was not a visual magnet for social attention.   As a hot blonde with an amazing figure, she was an overly attractive magnet for social attention.  We both dealt with the issue by shutting out others.  In a way, I have it easier than she does.  If someone talks with me, I can safely assume they like me and/or are kind.  In her case, she can’t safely make that assumption because of all the Lotharios out there willing to prey on vulnerable women like emotional vampires.

I did not ask, but had the sense she was a single mom.  In a random act of kindness, I gave her a Groupon voucher for $20 to a coffee shop in the U-district.  Hopefully she will go there and have more conversations with others.

I am grateful for no longer being terminally unique and my recently enhanced senses of compassion & empathy.

Qwest DSL

I have two Qwest DSL accounts.  Qwest's weird billing schemes greatly encourage upgrading DSL speeds every 6 months.  Today I upgraded from 1.5 to 7 Mbps and the price went from 49.99 to 45 with a free month of service.  Experience has shown I will have to do that again in another 6 months.  My home account is a 40 Mbps download rate.

On the bright side, it will be faster and cheaper.  On the dark side, customers in the US pay more for slower internet than any other country in the OECD. 

Qwest also sends me emails about violating the TOS for uploading bitTorrent files.  It is not that I want to upload the files, but when I am downloading movies & shows, bitTorrent works best with reciprocity.  It is possible Qwest will cut me off from paying them $100/month to appease the RIAA.  At least the RIAA, stopped suing people as of 2008.  I read somewhere that they spent about $45 million to collect several hundred thousand dollars.

I love and am grateful for my high-speed internet service.  




PS: For some reason this was saved as a draft from 4/4/11 until today 10/11/11.  I think it lacked a title.
PPS:  Qwest is now CenturyLink.
PPPS:  It was published on 4/4, don't know why I randomly found this draft on my Blogger page tonight.   Oh well, since I am tracking how many times I post a gratitude blog this year, BONUS! It counts twice.  :) 
http://gratitude4me.blogspot.com/2011/04/high-speed-dsl-internet-access.html

rainy day activities

Even on the best days of summer, I don’t spend much time outside.  On cold rainy days like today, spending time outside is even less likely to happen.  Fortunately for me, my apartment has a multitude of indoor activities and resources that allow me to be productive and entertained while staying dry.

Today’s activities include sort-of watching a movie (I did not like Nurse Betty with Renee Zellwegger and Morgan Freeman), science shows (dark matter/energy comprises 95% of the Universe!), writing a book review for Flourish on Amazon, emailing people about pending projects, web surfing, microwaving frozen pork potstickers from Uwajimaya (they were surprisingly good), playing with my cats Bug and Jenny, some Kindle reading, and a little house-cleaning.

Tomorrow’s weather forecast is for a wet morning followed by a dry evening.  I will run some errands tomorrow afternoon.

I am grateful for my nice quiet warm apartment with plenty of activities, entertainment and food allowing me to be productive on stormy Fall days.

willingness

A friend goes to meetings but refuses to do the rest of the 12-step program of getting a sponsor, doing the steps, and working with others.  Last night, she explained to me was that she has been clean for almost 2.5 years and that there would be no benefit to her working the program.

I gently tried to explain to her about condemnation prior to investigation being a documented well-known alcoholic behavior.  She was sure she did not have that problem.  I wished her well and we parted ways after an inexpensive Mexican meal.  This disease never ceases to amaze me with its cunning baffling power. 

I have no idea how some find willingness and others remain unwilling to work on a problem that has clearly had a negative impact on their lives, family members, friends and others.  It is clearly not a matter of being smarter or dumber.  There are both smart & dumb people on both sides of the willingness divide.

I am grateful that I have the god-given willingness to work a functional 12-step program to the reasonable best of my ability.  

one day at a time

Tried to go a meeting late this afternoon that I had not been to in 4 months.  The ramp to the room was stacked full of chairs in what might have been an effort to either install new flooring or clean the old carpet.  Since that was clearly not going to work, I went to my usual Sunday night meeting.  A friend was there an hour early since she got off work and did not want to drive home and then come back to Bellevue ten minutes after she got home.

We chatted in the parking lot for a bit, Leslee joined us and we talked for another half-hour before the meeting.  A couple of guys were in ill health before the meeting.   The secretary came in, looked poorly and went home after I volunteered to lead the meeting for him.  The other guy stuck it out and agreed to seek emergency care after the meeting for hearing and vision problems that have occurred over the last three weeks.

Leslee is also reading the book Flourish.  We talked about the power of optimism to the guy with the hearing & vision problems.   I assured him with a cavalier wave of my arm that I was optimistic he would be okay.   He laughed and felt a little better about his predicament of no job, no health insurance and the possibility of serious health problems.

We talked about living one day at a time being especially helpful when dealing with scary healthcare issues such as not being able to hear with one ear for the last three weeks.  Thanks to the progress I have made in my recovery, I did not ‘tease’ him with ’jokes’ about how even Steve Jobs did not have enough money to fix his health care issues.  [Jobs died at the age of 56 from pancreatic cancer last week with a net worth of $11 billion.]

I am grateful to be able to live one day at a time as a vital component of my emotional sobriety.  There is plenty of room for future progress, but it is good enough for today.

completing multiple tasks

Today was a better than average good day.  I attended a monthly outreach committee meeting in Seattle, visited my mother, bought some spare nuts & bolts for my wheelchair, and attended a meeting at Echo Glen juvenile facility.  It felt good to complete tasks that I had set for myself in a timely fashion.

After all my gratitude writing and studying this year, I thought it would be good to make it easier for others to read about gratitude by publishing a compilation book of gratitude stories.  To help that along, I had made a motion in January at a meeting which was approved.  Then taken to the district where it was again approved and passed along to the area last summer.  The motion first had to be passed to get on the agenda at the assembly.  Today it was voted up at the assembly.  Next year, the area delegate will take the request for a compilation book back to the North American office to be considered by the board of directors and the publishing ‘subsidiary’ which is a stand-alone charity in its own right.   It is a slow process, but a lot more responsive then when I emailed the subsidiary management last year asking for a gratitude book and got no response at all.

In the past, a successful day like today would leave me with a feeling of “is this all there is?”  Today I get to be grateful for what I for a successful day and okay with there not being ‘more’.  I did commit to working on more projects now that I have finished the last project.

I am grateful for a successful day, completing commitments, being okay with today being good enough in a one day at a time sort of way and having more projects to work on in the future.

having a world class medical research facility only 10 miles away

As a paraplegic with a spinal cord injury, I often have relatively rare medical conditions that are not particularly complex, but do need specialized care.  Seattle has some of the best medical facilities and researchers in the world practicing at the UW Medical Center, Harborview, and other facilities such as Fred Hutchinson.

The UWMC has been a top-rated physical medicine rehab facility for decades.  Last time I checked, they were ranked as the second-best facility in the US.  In this instance, second best is really really good.  That is better than Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Stanford and so on.

Getting such great medical care and living so close to the UW/Harborview, I feel some responsibility to participate as a guinea pig in research studies.   I have participated in at least a half-dozen studies in the last decade.   Counting studies is a bit ambiguous since the studies have different phases with different titles although they are all run out of the rehab medicine or psychology departments.  The studies I do are usually about treatment of chronic pain with hypnosis or meditation.

Next week, I will begin another study where they will do hypnosis and meditation while monitoring with EEG sensors.  It is great getting free guided meditation or hypnosis by PhD candidates while furthering the cause of pain reduction research—especially when it is my pain being reduced.

I am extremely grateful for having incredibly high quality medical care with paid research projects a short drive away.

technical skills and friends

Today’s technical challenge was fixing Dan’s Dell XP DVD drive.  Dan got the PC after his father passed away and so it has great sentimental value to him. 

The standard technique of removing and reinstalling the DVD player via Device Manager did not work.  Deleting the driver files didn’t work.  Trying to install a new driver from Dell and/or elsewhere on the web did not work because all sites I tried wanted to install a crapware download manager that did not fix the problem.  Lacking an XP disk, I couldn’t extract the file from the installation disk.  System Restore couldn’t fix the problem since the two available restore points would not reinstall.

I was ready to give up and go have lunch with Dan, which was why I came over in the first place, when Dan said he had some Dell CD disks that might help.  I give it another go.  BIOS/boot tools proved the DVD to be working and that it was a driver problem.  Using an old Google search trick (site:Microsoft.com), I searched only the Microsoft.com web site and was able to find, download and install the needed driver. 

The unhappy lesson is how hard it is to support XP using Google.  In the past when I needed a driver for XP, I could Google multiple driver download locations and install the needed device driver from a myriad of locations.  Today all I got was crapware—even from Dell.   I successfully solved a 5-minute problem in under an hour.

What I did notice while working on the problem was that maintaining optimism throughout the process helped me to keep working on it.  Worst case was either reinstalling Windows XP from a disk I was no longer using or getting a new DVD drive, either method would solve the problem the next time I came over.

We had a nice lunch. I drove Dan home and waited around Seattle for an hour to meet Jennifer after work.  She had agreed to take my gratitude booklets to the Area Assembly in Ocean Shores.  We met at Uwajimaya, bought enough food to get free validated parking and chatted for awhile.

I am grateful for my technical skills, my friends and cool grocery stores like Uwajimaya.

being okay with not have a topic de jour

My method for coming up with gratitude blog topics mostly consists of thinking back on my day and writing about something good.  I start with the title and go from there.  Tonight I could not come up with a title subject.  That is okay, I am still grateful for many good things in my life and for the nice day that I enjoyed today.

I talked on the phone with a friend and we both felt better.  Met one friend at the mall and discussed things we are grateful for.  We read a short story from a gratitude booklet I had printed and then made a short gratitude list of our own.  Charlie left and then another friend met me at the mall and we enjoyed a delicious dinner at a nice Italian restaurant followed by yummy desserts from the bakery around the corner.

I love my new PC.  In human-like robotics there is a phenomenon known as the uncanny valley where the robot is really close to being human-looking but not good enough to get by.  The PC is so fast it was uncanny.  I am sure I will soon get used to that!  Applications don’t visibly process to open, they just pop-up on the screen ready to go.  I like it!  And will probably never have any real need for that kind of processing with current applications.  Maybe if I get into serious video editing I might use a large fraction of the processing power.

I am grateful for another good day talking with friends, a delicious dinner and an awesome new PC.

better conflict resolution skills

Went to a 12-step business meeting tonight where a few people had a resentment about past activities and how they were implemented.  Back in the day, this would have been time for my condescending sarcastic bombast to explain it to them.  Tonight I got to show up differently by getting the most contentious group members to mostly follow ground rules of not interrupting or talking over each other and waiting for each person to state their concerns and perception.

We did not come to final agreement we did, so to speak, clean out the wound.  Next month we will be able to come to mutually agreed upon and understood terms—until the next time.  That is good enough for today.

I also managed to complete the layout of a gratitude booklet.   Printed 100 copies and shared them at the meeting.  After the contentious discussion, the timing did not lend itself to a big discussion on gratitude.  That is okay.  I did the footwork and am not responsible for the outcome.

I am grateful for the (newfound) wisdom, patience and social skills that make me a much more positive presence in the Universe. 

a new hard drive and a much more optimistic outlook

Last week I ordered a new hard drive. I am still working on fixing the chaos from that upgrade. The good news is I now have a really fast PC. Soon I will have Windows 7 installed on my new hard drive.

My two favorite parts about the extended upgrade on my PC are having a hobby activity to work on for a couple of days and that the fast new PC is working mostly as it should. There is still a lot of software installation to be done yet.

The change in my level of optimism and gratitude made this a much better project than it would have been had I simply slogged through it with a sense of things never work out for me.

I am grateful for the newfound optimism and change in mindset that working on gratitude has brought to my life.

enjoying new friends

Went to a recovery information event this afternoon. There were a dozen rehab centers with tables, a couple of vendors of books & trinkets, and a table for our 12-step organization. I staffed the table for a couple of hours, bought a book about being an alcoholic mother from the author, a magnet and a bumper sticker from another lady that both read "Life Sucks Less Sober". Since I don't do bumper stickers, I gave it away to the first pretty girl to walk by our table. She was pleased.

The purchases were random acts of kindness in supporting others trying their hand at a new business. They both appreciated the purchases and we chatted for a few minutes about gratitude and other topics. It was nice.

Talking with a guy from a men's shelter, the Union Gospel Mission, there is a good chance that we would be able to get a meeting started there. That would be great.

There was a comedian towards the end of the day. Most people had left leaving him with a score or two of people spread out over a large room. Tough crowd, but he tried.

There was a band Vance and Freedom that played for an hour. They were pretty good. For a song or two, I got to danced with six women in a fairy circle around me—that was way cool! By the end of their set, everybody had left. They had volunteered their time to support the recovery event. I gave a donation to help cover gas money.

In the past, I would have wanted to make token purchases or tip the band, but I would have not have money for that having already spent it all on drugs or paying off debts when in recovery. It felt good to support others in their recovery and creativity. I will do that again.

My new PC needs to be put together. I am taking my time in reading the manual beforehand and watching a few YouTube DIY training videos on putting a CPU in a motherboard—I have never done that before. Looks easy when done correctly on a YouTube video. I hope and pray my attempt at assembly goes nearly so well.

I am grateful for a nice afternoon spent with other optimistic happy people.