a few of my favorite gratitude websites

Greater Good at Berkeley is the site that got me started on studying gratitude one year ago.

Tips on keeping a gratitude journal

Why Gratitude is Good

Christine Carter’s focus on Raising Happiness

Martin Seligman’s Authentic Happiness at the University of Pennsylvania

A goal for 2012 is to work my way through all the Authentic Happiness website along with volunteering for a few of the research studies.

I have started using SuperBetter.com to help me lose weight and get fit. I have not done much dieting and exercise yet, but it is already helping me to change my self-image to that of a person to whom fitness matters and is worth the work to have a healthier body.

There are a gazillion more web sites with similar information. The problem is not lack of information. It is a matter of finding the motivation to do the work. I believe that these websites have information to enable me to change my habits of diet and exercise to achieve a much better level of physical fitness in the next year.

more about gratitude because I like it

Last night, I completed my commitment for writing 260 gratitude posts this year. From here on out, I will be writing because I like how it makes me feel. Being grateful and thinking positive thoughts is a lot more pleasant than how it used to be.

Had a fun afternoon with an acquaintance that I had not seen in 4 years. We are both doing better than how it used to be and had a nice time chatting with each other. Then it was off to a meeting to discussion the eleventh Tradition “Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films”.

In my experience, Tradition 11 has been mis-interpreted and abused more than any other tradition. Attraction rather than promotion is telling people what worked for me instead of telling them “you should go do…” It is about leading by example and not by the hypocrisy of do what I say, not what I do.

Maintaining personal anonymity is about individuals keeping a low profile and not having stories with pictures of them coming out on press, radio and film. Experience has proven that spokes-models trying to represent 12-step programs can be a minefield of relapsing proving they don’t work to those seeking an excuse to not work a program of recovery. That is not the same thing as being a secret program. 12-step programs have signs on buses, PSAs on broadcast media, phone numbers in phonebooks, and print literature placed in libraries, ERs and other locations with high exposure to people with problems related to excessive alcohol consumption.

I am grateful for new friends and for having learned about 12-step programs that help me achieve recovery.

finishing a one-year commitment 34 days early

While surfing the web on Thanksgiving one year ago, I came across the website http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/ that lead me into my gratitude blogging and studying. That lead to my making a New Year’s resolution to blog about gratitude for 5x/week for the year (260 posts). Since I had never made a resolution that I had taken seriously in my life, I am as surprised as and even more pleased than anybody that this will be my 260th post of the year.

It is another great example of the progress I have made in my recovery to honor my commitments and exhibit healthier behaviors than how it used to be in my life.

This was a great weekend of progress for me. Tonight was the 10^th year in a row of having a Gratitude Dinner at a local community center. The reason they did not have a Gratitude Dinner 11 years ago was nobody bothered to rent the hall in a timely fashion. I have rented the hall for the last ten years. I don’t do much else for the gratitude dinner beyond offer timely suggestions now and again to the dinner chairperson. Sometimes they follow my suggestions and other times they have a different approach.

We have done a remarkable job of getting a good turnout to fill the hall without creating the problem of having too many people in the hall. The is a fire marshall limit of 250 people in the hall for dinner. We print 300 tickets and try to sell them all. Due to some people buying tickets and not coming along with others leaving the tickets on their dresser, printing 20% too many tickets works for us.

Most of my life, I have been excessively passive about pre-planning social events. That would result into my going to the Gratitude Dinner and sitting with one other friend at a table full of other people I did not know. This year, I arranged to have a half-dozen people sit with me. It was a nice experience being surrounded by friends at dinner instead of acquaintances or people I did not know at all. I will do that again next year.

I made up gift-kits with a little how-to increase gratitude card in an envelope tied with a rose-colored ribbon. A few kits included copies of Flourish and others just card the card & ribbon. I passed-out 8 cards and 3 book-kits to friends tonight. That went well. Now I will have even more people to talk with about gratitude and well-being. The rose-colored ribbon was to remind people to view life with an optimistic perspective as if through rose-colored glasses.

I am grateful for the progress I have made in increasing my well-being, serenity, security and happiness this year. I am also grateful to my sister and friends for all the support they have given me in my recovery. I don’t know if god exists. I do know for a fact that my life goes better when I act as if there is a kind & loving HP out there for me. Thank you to my HP-belief… I am a spiritual agnostic! J

a sunny Black Friday

Today was Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year in the US. Allegedly, Black Friday is the day that merchants become profitable (in the black) for the year. Every year, the merchants creep the starting time forward a few hours. It used to be 8 AM, then 6, then midnight. Now some stores open at 10 PM on Thanksgiving Day.

I don’t understand the attraction to Black Friday shopping. Maybe if I viewed shopping as a competitive sport it would make sense. I have yet to see a deal on Black Friday that was not available on December 24^th at the same or lower price. One and only one big TV for $20 in a big box store is not a deal, it is a lottery.

The good news nobody was killed in a stampede this year. One lady tear-gassed 20 other shoppers at an LA Walmart so she could buy some game for a few bucks cheaper. I hope she gets prison time for assault with chemical weapons by a terrorist. Tear-gassing people because they are near you needs to be stopped now—whether by crazed shoppers or power-mad campus security guards.

I am grateful to have all I need by way of material possessions. Of course, I will need more food and supplies over time. As far as my need for durable goods goes, I have all I need. Don’t get me wrong, I am still buying nearly useless small items from Amazon Prime (I didn’t need a brushed metal kitchen string dispenser for $10, but I will have one on Tuesday!), but that is the antithesis of competitive shopping.

Today was good day. Sandy and I had lunch at the Olive Garden in Kirkland for a change of pace since she had Friday off. We nearly always meet in Bellevue since she works here and I live here.

I am grateful for good friends, sunny days in late November, not having to participate in competitive shopping and a great college football game between #1 LSU and # Arkansas.

* Also, this is my 259^th post for the year. One post and I will have reached my commitment of 260 gratitude blog posts for the year—getting things done early is a whole new way of living for me.

a pleasant Thanksgiving

Meet with Carol and Lise (“Lisa”) today at Carol’s church—the First Presbyterian on Bellevue Way. We found a table with room for three, sat and chatted for a bit while waiting for Lise to make it down from Everett.

Lise arrived with a round of hugs for all. I made-up a gift bag for each of them consisting of Seligman’s Flourish, a green half-page card with gratitude enhancing techniques in a red envelope, both placed in a small brown shopping bag tied shut with a rose-colored ribbon. The rose-colored ribbon served as a reminder it is best to see the world through rose-colored glasses, i.e., the glass is half-full. I have my issues with gift-giving and was glad that went well.

we headed over to the buffet. It was a simple line-up of Thanksgiving staples: rolls; salad; regular and cornbread stuffing; mashed potatoes; sweet potatoes; gravy; roast turkey; deep-fried turkey with Cajun seasoning; a tart cranberry sauce/relish; and apple & pumpkin pie. The food was good, the company was great. After a full meal, we chatted some more and went to movie.

We got to theater nearly an hour early. Lise forgot her purse at the church and had to go back for it. Fortunately, it was less than a mile from the church to the theater. Carol and I were so early that we got chased out of the theater by the clean-up crew. Carol sat on a bench in the corridor while we talked and waited for Lise.

When Lise arrived, we talked about what we were grateful for. The last year or two was rough on both of them in terms of employment and economic security. Their spirituality had carried them through with a faith that they were both pleasantly surprised to enjoy. It could have been much more stressful for them.

Carol got a AA degree in Business and now has a job that is a reasonably good match for her background with design and textiles. It would be more secure if their internet, email and phone service had not gone-down for most of the day yesterday. She works for a national furniture and design franchise. It is not unreasonable to expect a higher level of IT support.

Lise was laid off earlier this year and has gone to school to be a dog trainer. The classes are over. The just missed passing the 480-question certification test last week and will take it again next week. After that, she will be a certified dog trainer. I find that a bit ironic since she three cats at home. There is no such thing as a cat trainer.

All three of us are now cat people. Today’s movie? Puss in Boots which was an animated prequel of Puss’s life before the Shrek movies. It had great video, good dialogue and a decent story of friendship gone awry and getting back together.

After the movie, we went downstairs to Tully’s coffee shop to chat some more. That was probably the first time this year I spent time chatting in a coffee shop. Since I don’t drink coffee, it is not something I am compelled to do. It was nice to talk more with friends about our recent past and where we hope to be in the near future.

I am grateful for a pleasant Thanksgiving Day with good friends, good conversation and no negativity.

Thanksgiving Eve

Thanksgiving is the big holiday for gratitude in America. It is portrayed as being a direct descendent of times past when the ship Mayflower carrying English Separatists (Pilgrims) headed for the Hudson River was blown off course and ended up at Cape Cod Bay. 100 passengers and 25-30 crew spent the winter on the Mayflower.

The first Thanksgiving feast lasted 3 days having enough food for 13 Pilgrims and 90 Indians. The New England colonists were accustomed to regularly celebrating "thanksgivings"—days of prayer thanking God for blessings such as military victory or the end of a drought.

Magazine editor Sarah Josepha Hale, who wrote the famous nursery rhyme, “Mary Had a Little Lamb”, had lobbied for decades for a Thanksgiving holiday to be celebrated nationwide on a specific day. She persuaded President Abraham Lincoln that such a celebration could help unify a nation fractured by the Civil War. Lincoln’s proclamation, dated Oct. 3, 1863, established the last Thursday in November as “a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.” Hale was a powerful advocate for women’s education as exemplified by her being a founding member of the Vassar women’s college and frequent articles supporting education and employment for women.

For most Americans, Thanksgiving is a family event leading it to be the busiest holiday for travel of the year. For those with more disconnected family relationships, such as myself, it is a time to spend with friends.

I have spent the last 7 Thanksgivings with my friends Carol and Lise. We share a meal and then a movie at a local theater. Meal locations ranged from fine dining at Daniel’s Broiler at the top of the Hyatt to a Presbyterian church buffet with home cooking being the plan for last year. (The church was closed.)

This year, it is again back to the 1^st Presbyterian Church for the buffet followed by a movie. The best movie Thanksgiving movie so far was the first James Bond with Daniel Craig. Tomorrow, we are going to get together, eat & chat, and then look at the movie schedule to see what is playing at a convenient time.

I am grateful for getting to spend time with my friends Carol and Lise as a holiday rite on Thanksgiving and Christmas. It adds strong sense of stability and security to my life.

compelled to write

My life has miraculously changed as a direct result of writing these gratitude posts. Years of 12-step meetings and therapy helped prep for this experience to be sure.

Now I am compelled to write nearly every night. Much good comes from the experience of writing. I get to reflect on my day looking for the good parts. While I am looking for the good parts, little time is wasted staring at the not-so-good parts of my day.

This is my 256^th gratitude post of the year. I am pleased by the prospect of reaching 260 by the end of November. My goal for the year was to write 5posts/week * 52weeks/year = 260 posts/year. I have never finished a one year project a month ahead of schedule in my life. That is quantified results showing the progress I have made in my towards being able to start and complete projects in a timely basis.

Alcoholics and addicts are notorious for starting many tasks & projects with very little completion to show for their efforts. My completing the 260 posts is one more indicator showing that I am a recovered alcoholic. 12-step dogma holds that while there is no cure, we can be recovered alcoholics.

For the first time ever, I am grateful to say/write that I am a recovered alcoholic. The dogma also states that we have a daily reprieve contingent on our spiritual condition. That is good enough for today.

PS: One of the gurus of the positive psychology/gratitude research, Robert Emmons at UC Davis, was cited in a NY Times article today. I have read 3 of his 5 books and am halfway through the yet another of his books, The Psychology of Gratitude

lunch with my friend Mark

Had lunch with Mark H today. It has been 8 months since the last time I saw him. We used to meet about every two months. For some reason, the last time we had lunch I interpreted an expression he when leaving that we weren’t going to be having lunch again—ever. So I never contacted him again about having lunch. Fortunately, he called me two weeks ago arranging for us to meet today.

Meeting with Mark went well. I don’t have many guy friends that I spend time with. Okay, there are two: Mark and Charlie. I have lots of women friends (although a big shortage of girlfriends).

We talked about gratitude and communication problems during lunch. As we were leaving, I ‘fessed-up to having read we’re breaking up/not hanging no more from his expression. I prefaced that by acknowledging that on a web-test of ‘guess the expression’, I got 3 out of 20 correct whereas my friend Tracy got 20 of 20 correct. I suck at recognizing facial expressions, yet I am more than willing to allow that to guide (mislead) me in some of my most important relationships.

Spent time with a new friend, Alice, today as we went to Costco to get pop and water for the Gratitude Dinner on Saturday. We bought just the right amount of pop & water. 9 cases later, we had completely filled the trunk of my car. Alice is 20 years old and has been sober for a year. She has a sponsor and worked the steps. That is light-years more together than I ever even considered being at her age with respect to dealing with substance abuse issues. An impressive young lady.

I am grateful that my friends today help protect me from myself along with my worst-case interpretation of expressions and events. I am also grateful for pleasant conversations with friends old and new.

looking forward to a nice Thanksgiving week with friends

I usually anticipate holidays with an attitude somewhere between mehh and I wish is was next week already. This year, I am pleased to discover that I am looking forward to the week of Thanksgiving.

Having healthy planned activities helps a lot. I have activities with friends planned for everyday this week. That is much more social and organized than past behavior. Wednesday’s activity is a ‘maybe’. I am sure to follow through with the rest of my plans.

The District 34 Gratitude Dinner is my favorite holiday event of the year. It is a slightly upscale pot-luck dinner at a local community center. It is the closest thing I have to an extended family holiday meal with my recovery elders, cousins, nieces and nephews. A large noisy crowded room cuts into my ability to communicate with others due to my tinnitus and mobility issues. Nonetheless, I like to sit with friends and watch all the happiness & joy bustling happening around me as if at a party for the survivors of the titanic disaster. We have survived and flourished for another year.

I am grateful for all the progress I have achieved through diligent consistent hard work on my recovery. I am lucky to have been able to stay-the-course this far.

a Thanksgiving meal with my mother

I have not eaten any meal, much less a holiday meal, with my mother in 8 years. Today, we shared an early Thanksgiving Dinner at her assisted living facility. The food pretty good (amazingly good for a senior living place) and the place was packed with residents and family members. Management had set aside a tiny table in a reasonably quiet out-of-the-way spot that worked well for us. The staff at Sunrise Assisted Living do an amazing job of providing a high quality of customer service.

Immediately after spending a holiday meal with my mother, I promptly went to a half of one and all of another 12-step meetings at the local Alano Club. I got the pick the topic for second meeting. As faithful readers might likely think by now, we discussed gratitude.

Alano Clubs are also known as first-step halls (admitted we were powerless over alcohol) due to being where newcomers come in all torn-up and full of tales of woe. Today, they were nearly all able to stay on topic discussing what they were grateful for whether it was being at their first meeting or having a really great life with the wife, kids and a good job that they loved. Pretty surprising for an Alano Club afternoon slip-signers meeting. Slips are like timecards for treatment and courts to show that someone is in compliance with attending at least X number of meetings each week. X is usually 2 and sometimes more than 2.

I am grateful for a tasty Thanksgiving meal with my mother. For the Alano Club with lots of 12-step meetings located between her place and mine—it is about 10 seconds out of my way when coming home.

a great musical production of ‘Hairspray’ at the Seattle Musical Theater

Yesterday was Margo’s birthday. Tonight we went to dinner and a musical.

Dinner was at Harissa’s Lebanese restaurant across the street from Margo’s place on 65th in Seattle. We split an combo appetizer of baba ganush , tahini, a chili/walnut salsa, and hummus with pita bread. We ate slowly and were full by the time the lamb kabobs showed up.

After dinner, we headed over to Seattle Musical Theater’s home for the last four years at Magnuson Park. We had a strategic seating discussion with Amanda the house manager. Amanda was not able to solve the problem directly. With Margo’s intervention, another patron sat in a different spot so we could sit together.

The actors were incredible with great energy and skill. The band sounded great. It was an amazingly high caliber event. We are sure to be back again soon. Each play runs for about a month. SMT will take a break for the holidays and be back next year with A Chorus Line.

I am grateful for a great evening with Margo, a surprisingly good Lebanese restaurant (I thought having salmon kabobs on the menu of a middle eastern restaurant was a bad omen—the lamb was delicious) and incredibly musical theater.

a trusted mechanic

I have been taking my old used cars to the same auto repair shop for the last ten years. It has changed owners twice in that time. The second owner did not last long and I never had them do repairs on my car. The third owner has run the shop for the last 6 years. He is a really nice guy named Ali with the eponymous Ali’s Automotive in Bellevue.

A headlamp in my burned out the other day. I got a new pair of the top-rated replacement bulbs from Amazon at a great price. In theory, the bulbs are easily replaced with no tools needed. In practice, it was cold, dark and dreary when I tried to replace the burned-out bulb today at 4 PM. It did not go well. Rather than fight it risking problem escalation by damaging other parts, I called Ali’s and scheduled a needed oil change for tomorrow. While I am there, I will have both bulbs replaced.

It is a comforting feeling to have a trusted mechanic that will do the job correctly the first time, not upsell me nor ‘create‘ problems. While I am there, I will also have them give my car a once-over for any needed pro-active repairs for winter driving—there is a good chance they would do that without being asked. I will be explicit and ask them to look it over.

Ali’s Auto is in an auto repair ghetto that was slated to be rebuilt into a light-rail station and mini-urban neighborhood north of Bel-Red road near 130^th Ave NE. That plan was quashed due in part to tough economic times. Ali opened a second shop in Woodinville. I vastly prefer having the shop located a short 10 minute drive from my place.

I am extremely grateful for an honest reliable mechanic conveniently located near me with good prices and great service.

Ali’s Bellevue Automotive

http://www.bellevueautorepair.com/

Woodinville

http://woodinvilleautorepair.com/

an increasing rate of change

Back in the day—a few decades ago—it was possible to see where technology was headed a few years in advance such as with standalone PCs > networked PCs > web-linked PCs. Or cell phones going from the Motorola brick to smaller cheaper digital models.

In the last 5 years, two new devices have changed the playing field: smart phones and tablets. In a few short years, they are already outselling PCs. They are headed towards being the same device with the only difference being the size of the screen and whether or not it fits in your pocket.

Apple makes wonderful products. I personally don’t want to be locked into devices controlled by one company with a notoriously stranglehold on 3^rd party vendors interaction with their products. For most people, that is probably a good thing. It simplifies choices and eliminates some major security issues.

My current favorite hardware manufacturer is Samsung. I have a Samsung: PC monitor, TV, and DVD player. When I do finally get a tablet device, it will likely be a Samsung. They make high-quality goods that sell at a competitive price in my neighborhood on the technology price/performance curve.

The next decade will have some blockbuster new products. My best guess is that bio-tech will lead the way with near-cures for cancer, obesity and/or diabetes. Health care concerns trump the need for new gadgets.

Now if I could only peer into the future to know which companies will win the markets with their new products, I would be ready to make my first stock investment. I was going to buy Samsung. It turns out that Samsung only trades on the Kospi market in South Korea. I am not yet ready for that much adventure in my stock trades.

I am grateful for the rapid pace of technological change in our world. My free-market perspective loves more & better products at cheaper prices.

medical insurance by medicare, more is revealed

After getting a postcard from Medicare informing me that my open enrollment is from now until December 7^th (Pearl Harbor Day-WTH?), I skimmed their website and quickly concluded I would need to call to get comprehensible information.

It turns out that my open enrollment is January to March of 2012. If I do signup then, I will have health care insurance starting in July. Not the quickest process around, but vastly more affordable than paying retail on the open (protected oligopoly) market place. That greatly simplifies the decision making process for the next 4 months.

I did participate in a chronic pain reduction study today. Today’s process was a 2 mAmp DC charge with electrodes about my left ear and on my right temple with an unknown voltage. It was slightly uncomfortable during the first 10 minutes with a slight burning/prickling sensation during the 2 mAmp phase. The second 10 minutes was with a 1 mAmp current that was nearly undectable after the first burn-in.

There was a minute where my chronic pain was completely gone. I can’t tell what is from the treatment and what is from a placebo effect of having a technician plug in a bunch of electrodes and act busy. Either way, for a while there, my chronic pain was gone. My homework assignment was to determine what lasting effect there might be hours later. The pain is less than usual almost 12 hours later.

I am grateful to know that I will presumably have healthcare insurance in the second half of next year. Right now, I am grateful that my chronic pain is less than usual.

medical insurance

As a result of an logging accident in 1981, I am paralyzed from the waist down. That comes with a bundle of health-care issues. Fortunately for me, I was working for a legitimate company at the time and am covered by the Washington State – Department of Labor and Industries – Workman’s Compensation insurance that covers 100% of the health care expenses resulting from that accident. That has literally been the difference between life and death for me.

The downside of my medical insurance is that I have nothing to cover all the other health problems that happen in life as we get older. I got a postcard from medicare.gov today inviting me to sign up with either the original Medicare plan or a “Medicare Advantage Plan (like an HMO, PPO, or Private-Fee-for-Service Plan) or other Medicare Health Plan that offers both health coverage and prescription drug coverage”.

Naturally, making an informed choice is far more complicated than going on the web and clicking on a local plan provider. I am sure that there is almost no chance for a literature consumer to make a completely informed choice about which plan to pick. I will do my research and pick a plan that looks reasonably good. So far, Group Health is a strong contender simply by geographic proximity. They built a brand-new hospital a half-mile away. That at least makes them easy to find and immobile.

I am extremely grateful for the medical insurance that I currently have and am also grateful that I will be able to sign-up for additional health-care insurance at a reasonable cost.

learning perseverance and counting blessings

As a kid, my learned behavior was to quit early on if projects were not going my way. At least a part of that behavior was that it would not hurt so much when I failed to complete projects successfully if I wasn’t really trying that hard. There were many painful unnecessary lessons taught by family members that conditioned me to have that belief system. Part of it was also genetic makeup. Nature and nurture combined lead me to do a half-assed effort before quitting incomplete or poorly completed tasks.

As an addict, I had plenty of tenacity that was not healthy and did not result in long-term rewards beyond the next using session. In recovery, I am learning a healthy form of tenacity and perseverance that enables me to work on the goals I want to achieve in a healthy process-oriented way.

I participate in a 12-step organization that has primary purpose of helping to carry the message to those that still suffer. Carrying the message is done many ways. The formal organizational structure is to be done by service committees. There is a lack of participation on those committees that I don’t really understand. Years of experience is leading me to conclude that is not my issue. My task is to do what I can when possible. Due to a ‘lack of harvesting by others’, there is plenty of low-hanging fruit for me to pick from.

Being an introvert with a profound disability that likes to stay home and play with my computer, things I do tend to be ‘paper oriented’ instead of going out and pressing the flesh at hospitals, schools or other institutions. The old me would be sure that I could do more & better. That is undoubtedly true. The recovered me is grateful to realize what efforts I have made are good enough for today.

I am grateful to be at peace with my life, for being able to be of service to others, and for getting better at counting the blessings in my life instead of counting the woes.

not watching TV news

I almost never watch broadcast TV nor TV news. For a change of pace this morning, I decided to flip through the channels on morning TV. The local FOX affiliate was running a local news show.

I happened to catch the weatherman. He talked about the remnants of the worst storm to hit Alaska in the last 100 years bearing down on Washington State. The forecast was for rain, wind and below normal temperatures—until March! It was the gloomiest weather forecast I have ever heard. Even hurricanes and tornadoes go away after a couple of days.

For the second year in a row, we have a La Nina weather system that will cause the jet-stream to flow from the north Pacific straight to Puget Sound. That never happens three years in a row (I hope). The good news is that this particularly storm set will only last for nine days.

I am grateful that I rarely watch TV news. It is way too sensationalistic and fear-mongering for me to use as a reliable source of information.

gratitude in the joint

This evening, we headed out to Monroe with a carful. Two other guys met us there for a total of 6 volunteers at our 12-step meeting. That is the most volunteers we have had in years at the second Thursday meeting.

It was great meeting. We had ten minutes at the end, so I asked everybody to quickly state what they were grateful for. Answers varied from coffee to serenity to family and so on. The bottom line is that we all stated something that we were grateful for. It is amazing to me how simply talking about gratitude makes us all feel better.

I am grateful for my life and my recovery today. Also grateful for good friends, DSL, my new-ish home theater PC (old case, new insides) and economic security.

reasonably good DSL

For five years, I did customer service/tech support at a tiny telephone company that provided voice-over-internet-protocol (VOIP) phone service. After that experience, I have stayed with a POTS (plain old telephone service) land-line for the reliability instead of going with the VOIP for savings.

Since last night, my DSL service has been erratic in a not-good sort of way. Tonight, the DSL was not working at all. Thanks to having a POTS line, I was able to call CenturyLink (nee Qwest, nee USWEST, nee Pacific NW Bell) DSL tech support. The first call got dropped with the CSR had me unplug the phone line. After a few minutes, the tech called me back and we got the DSL working. It continued to work for at least 5 minutes after we closed the call.

Twenty minutes later, I called CenturyLink for more tech support. The CSR I spoke with was stupid liar. He denied there was an outage, even though I had just called CTL tech support and got a busy signal. When a phone company’s line is busy at 8 PM, it is an extremely likely sign of an outage. When I asked him on it, he denied an outage.

The tech was adamant that what I had was a cabling problem on the inside or the outside of my apartment. He could not explain how the phone line worked with excellent quality on the same connection that was killing the DSL.

That is the first time I called about problems with my DSL in three years. I have never had a problem with my POTS line not working at this apartment. The onsite tech will be here tomorrow morning to look at the problem. My guess is the outage will be over and he will simply call me from his truck pretending to have fixed the problem.

It sucks when my internet connection is down. It is less annoying to let it be down for a bit and do other things instead of fighting the DSL problem/slow DSL all night long like I did last night.

While the South Koreans get 1000 Mbs DSL, for the US, my (“up to”) 30 Mbs is better than what most Americans have—when it works.

I am grateful for the miracle of the high-speed web access from my apartment. I am also glad I gave up streaming movies ala’ NetFlix and have a download methodology. Even with a dead internet connection, I still have 100s of hours of commercial free TV shows and movies to watch.

PS: It may have been a hardware problem. The onsite tech tested my apartment signal added a new DSL phone filter, declared it okay and left. The problem was still occurring. I called the tech back 10 minutes after he left. He was still here, came back inside, did some more testing and then replaced the DSL modem. The DSL is working now. I feel like I was lied to more than once during this process, so I am not sure what the solution was. It may have been the modem, but that could also be a smokescreen to charge me for an onsite solution and a new modem. I have little trust in Telco’s telling the truth.

another missed opportunity—thank god

4-5 years ago, I was strongly considering buying a condo. I went condo shopping with a friend that is a real-estate agent. What I wanted and what I could afford were two different things.

It did not make sense for me to buy a condo then since I would have pay more each month to live in less desirable building and location. The biggest attraction to buying was a fixed expense for a mortgage instead of paying rent that had gone up every year by $100/month at my apartment complex.

I never bought a condo. It turns out that would have been at the peak of the housing bubble and I would have been underwater in a serious way. As it is, I still have money in the bank and no stress for owing mortgage payments that be vastly overpriced.

A Bloomberg report came out today (technically tomorrow since it is 10 PM on the 7^th here and the report is dated 11/8/11 at 12:325 AM) that 28.6% of US homeowners are underwater on their mortgages. That is a disaster that will take decades to unravel.

In related news, the SEC concluded that investers ‘misled’ by Citigroup lost $700M. The SEC is going to fine Citigroup $285M since all the investor losses were ”not necessarily” the result of misconduct. Citigroup sold a complex investment (aka derivative) to investors while simultaneously investing in a position that profited $160M by the investment tanking. The only Citigroup employee charged was a mid-level employee at a Citigroup subsidiary.

The good news is that Citigroup made $3,800M in profit in the third quarter this year. In response to the questions from Judge Rakoff who has a hearing on why this was not fraud, the SEC argued that the judge is not entitled “to evaluate claims that the government did not make and to inquire as to why they were not made.”

I am grateful I did not get stuck underwater on a mortgage like more than 28% of American homeowners are now. That was perhaps my biggest concern in buying a condo. It would have sucked big time to have that nightmare come true.

removing my shortcomings

Working a 12-step spiritual program of action is simple hard work. If it was easy a lot more people would be sober today. Tonight we were talking about the 7^th step of humbly asking him to remove our shortcomings. I chaired the meeting (talked first to set the ‘tone’) and talked about the 7^th step in a way that would be inclusive for the newcomers as well as the old-timers.

After the meeting while thinking about what to write tonight, I concluded that most of us really don’t get that much better at talking to our higher power. My HP is not stupid or lacking in powers of observation—I am the one that has plenty of room for progress. Where we do make fantastic progress is in being able to listen to our HP. For some people and/or situations, god is an acronym for Good Orderly Direction.

When writing these gratitude blogs, it is not that I am telling god what is going on with my day and what he needs to do. It is more nearly a matter of me paying attention to in a spiritual listening kind of way what is good in my life today. Physically very little has changed in my life today from how it was a year ago or 5 years. I have the same apartment, cats, type of car, etc. What has changed greatly in the last year is the parts of my day that I pay attention to now—now I see and write about the good parts of my day instead of ruminating on the parts that annoyed me. It leaves me with a much more buoyant attitude and memory of the day.

I am grateful for the progress I have made in being becoming more aware of and in tune with the goodness that my HP provides for me in my life today.

a good meeting with the kids

Went to a meeting at the Echo Glen Youth Facility tonight. EG is either a kiddie prison or a school depending on what context is being used to describe it.

The kids went around the room describing when they knew they had a problem and what happened after that. What I heard every single kid described sounded like being abandoned to me. There might have been adults in their lives, but there weren’t any functional parents. It was an incredibly powerful meeting hearing the kids being real about what it was like.

I shared a bit about my childhood, what happened and what it is like now. My mother was emotionally unavailable throughout my life. Sometimes she was at work, other times she was drunk, now she has dementia. I shared my experience of trying to go see my mother this week, getting half-way across the parking lot and going home.

I would rather go see kids in prison then my own mother. At least the kids are trying to be pleasant and are working on changing their lives. But the time I got done sharing my story with the kids, a few stray tears were running down my cheeks. It was a powerful meeting for all of us.

I am grateful for the people I got to meet, talk with and maybe help in my life today. They make my life better. Having Leslee along is always a bonus!

quieting the hamster wheel

There is a ‘business meeting’ that I have attended once a month for the last 10 years. It has grown and evolved from a handful of people when I started to a score of people regularly attending this meeting. Four months ago, an attendee got butt-hurt by action taken by another person that was new to the meeting. Since then, they have taken the meeting hostage with a never ending discussion that the group had ignored their ‘mandate’ on an vote that went 8 to 8.

The meeting has literally been taken hostage. I am getting Stockholm syndrome. Presumably we resolved the issue at this month’s meeting. I was optimistic after I left the meeting that we would not have to discuss the issue at yet another meeting in December. A day or two later, the hamster wheel in my head started spinning on the issue. Thanks to the progress made in my recovery, it was like the hamster wheel was in another room behind a closed door. I could not turn it off, by it was not all-consuming with negative thoughts.

I went to my doctor for a monthly blood test today. She told me a story about being bothered by something a former co-worker said to her on Tuesday. I shared my hamster wheel story. We both felt better and closer. After talking about it with another friend this evening, and then again at a meeting, the hamster wheel has nearly stopped.

I am grateful for the progress in my recovery providing tools to reduce the impact of incessant negative self-talk. Part of my enhanced gratetude is also appreciating problematic situations are not nearly as annoying as they used to be.

less pain than usual

I live near a large research hospital that gets, or at least used to get, more Federal funding for research than any other hospital the entire USA. As a person with a spinal cord injury suffering from chronic pain, I am in modest demand as a research ‘guinea pig’. I participate in a study or two every year which means I fill out some surveys and go over to the UWMC for some sort of non-invasive procedure such as hypnotherapy or meditation.

Today I went to the UW’s sister hospital Harborview for testing. I wore a skullcap to get a baseline EEG, traded that for biofeedback electrodes in an effort to change my Alpha and Beta brainwaves, did another EEG and left. It took two hours to complete the process—which is longer than any of the other study procedures I have done in the past.

By the time I was done, my chronic pain was greatly reduced and I felt refreshed. I don’t know if that was all placebo effect or the result of the biofeedback. Undoubtedly it was some combination of the two—I can’t tell effect resulted in greater pain relief. Either way, it felt really good to be sitting up in my wheelchair while having almost no pain.

Six-ish months ago, my neighbor opened a restaurant serving East African food in Columbia City. I finally made it over to the restaurant today, only to find out it was closed “due to circumstances beyond her control” per the note on the door. Jane works really hard at several jobs and I would have liked to have patronized her restaurant. I will buy some catered food from her sometime.

I got two free cookbooks from America’s Test Kitchen courtesy of my sister. I don’t have cable TV and rarely watch broadcast TV and never watch an entire show start to finish. I can’t stand the commercials. ATK is my favorite show to watch on broadcast TV due to their relatively simple recipes, excellent explanations of the cooking process, corny humor and informative style. Now I have two cookbooks in my cookbook library!

Positive thinking has a lot of control over pain reduction instead of simply being a victim of painful circumstances. My attitude has changed incredibly for the better this past year thanks in great part to writing about gratitude.

I am grateful for a good day and an afternoon experience that proved there are ways for me to sit in my wheelchair with less pain that I have existed with for years.