The Opiod Crisis

I’m writing about something I know almost nothing about. However, it has to be important that I educate myself and my readers as our president just agreed to treat this addiction as a national crisis. I have read that this crisis concerns the abuse of pain killers such as OxyContin®, Percocet®, Vicodin®, Percodan®, Tylox® and Demerol® among others, such as morphine, methadone, Buprenorphine, hydrocodone, and oxycodone. I know that I have had some of these drugs prescribed to me when I was recovering from my back and knee surgeries. I am fortunate, in some ways, as I have been diagnosed as having a high pain tolerance. Of course, such a diagnosis can also be dangerous. I have also learned that the illegal drug heroin is also an opiod as well as fentanyl that must be purchased from China. My question is why have I not heard of any of my friends having been treated for opiod addiction. If the disease is so widespread, why haven’t I had to support a friend’s healing from such an addiction? As you can see, I had to do some research for this blog.

Blogging 101

In a recent blog, I wrote about an “eminent” threat from a storm. At the time, it certainly must have looked right as I always reread my blogs, proofread them for spelling errors, and change language when it doesn’t read as I want it to read. How then did I overlook the use of “eminent” when I meant “imminent?” I don’t think I have to call it ignorance as I certainly knew better. I guess it’s part carelessness and partly my age. I find myself making little typing mistakes that make no sense such as typing “her” when I definitely meant “here.” Those errors are fairly easy to catch although they, of course, do not show up on spellcheck. One of the things that I aim for in my blogs is something that I emphasized when I was teaching composition: syntax. The flow of language is an art, and I work hard to capture that flow so that the words lean on each in order to complete the meaning of the blog. Hopefully, I will be successful more often than I will fail to say what I meant to say. Thank you, Kevin and Eido for calling out my error.

JVC versus Pioneer

When my JVC receiver “died” recently, after checking out the chance of its being repaired and learning that that appeared to be impossible, I went shopping at Magnolia, a side-store at Best Buy. The customer service guy there advised me to purchase the Pioneer receiver, which was on special. When it was connected to replace the JVC by my friend Jim, I found the sound to be remarkable but not totally satisfactory. The separation was OK but not as good as it had been with the JVC. After monkeying around with it, I returned to Magnolia and asked Omar, the guy who sold it to me, to give me some hints, which he did. The main suggestion he made was to push on every button on the remote to explore all of the options. When I did, I found that there were many ways to listen to and direct the sound including several surround options and the most important one, the DTS sound option. I’m now happy with my new sound system and can relax and enjoy it.

Slept Right Through It

I am an amateur weather watcher along with a buddy of mine who lives in Seminole. We call each other when storms are eminent or even when rainfall is occurring. We then compare total rainfall amounts and fuss when one gets more rain than the other. I keep a running total of the rain at my house, basing it on my Oregon rainfall gauge. The gauge can’t be totally accurate as it measures as no rainfall anything below .04. Nevertheless, when there is heavy rain, it seems to be very accurate. One thing I have to keep in mind is that the rainfall amount clears at midnight. One morning this week, when I got up, I was surprised that the sprinklers weren’t on as they come on automatically twice a week unless we have at least .15. I glanced at the gauge and was surprised to see that we had had .08 since midnight. I couldn’t figure out though why the sprinklers had turned themselves off. Re-checking the gauge, I was amazed to see that we had indeed had .08 rainfall but the total amount had been 1.08. I had slept right through it.

Reader, if you are not a follower of my blog, I hope you will become one. Go to http://www.bobosbest.wordpress.com and on the bottom of the right hand corner you will see the opportunity to sign up so that you receive this blog every time it is published. Click on the word FOLLOW and enter your e-mail address. Thank you.

Confusion Reigns

How many years have I been posting my blogs? I can’t remember. I do know that I wasn’t always using Word Press. Anyhow, I was doing just fine until one day this week when I wrote a post about our anniversary plans and our plans for celebrating. I had not finished the blog and certainly hadn’t edited it when it PUBLISHED. Now, I’m concerned that that will occur again until I relearn the process for creating, editing and then publishing. I definitely plan to contact Word Press and ask for assistance. The reprocessing necessity occurred when I had computer trouble and had to have the computer reprogrammed at Geek Squad. In the process, I lost my Edge browser and had to relearn the location of many sites that I depended on. I will survive, but it is going to take time and patience. Bear with me, Reader, especially if I am published out of sequence again accidentally.

 

Only Two

Since I am 79 years old and married, one would assume, if he didn’t know me, that I had been married fifty or so years. Not! August 8th, yesterday, was our second anniversary. As per our ritual, we celebrated at Spinners, the revolving restaurant on St. Pete Beach. Unlike last year when we experienced torrential rains so bad that we had trouble getting out of the parking lot, we had a beautiful sun-shiny day with an awesome view. We both shared anniversary cards and awoke congratulating each other for the positives that we have shared in the past and the excitement of the future together. We will continue to celebrate life despite the Trump presidency and will even pray that the president will “wake up and smell the roses.” Thank you, friends, who enhance our lives with every meal we share with you, every Sunday we sing with you in church, and  every movie we watch together. Life is good.

The Named No-Storm

On July 31, I woke up to light rain, enough light rain to prevent my partner from going out for his morning walk. It was a Monday and my morning to exercise at the YMCA. When I left for the Y, the rain had begun to pick up so I fortunately took my umbrella with me. As I was exercising on the bike, I glanced occasionally at the TV on the wall and learned that we had a new tropical storm that had formed just west of the Tampa Bay area, and its name was Emily. By the time I left the Y, the rain was coming down in torrents. The roads were flooded so I had to carefully choose my route home. What a surprise! The weather report on Sunday evening had mentioned that, although a low pressure area would form, it had less than a 20% chance of becoming tropical. Wrong! At the end of the day, Emily had dropped buckets of rainfall but little wind or damage. In comparison to other storms, she was Emilette and deserved the title of the “Named No-Storm” unlike the “No-Named Storm” of 1993.