A brighter day ...

Sometimes, something happens that is a pleasant surprise. Jennifer and I had lunch in a downtown diner this week in Sudbury. It was nice. On the way out, Jenn was paying for her parking chit when a nearby man began speaking to her quietly. At first I thought it might be one of her patients from work, so I kept a discreet distance.

Then I heard Jennifer tell the man, in a 'take charge' voice: “Well I won't give you spare change, but if you're hungry, I will buy you some food.”
The man said yes, he was hungry. Jenn told the man to follow her and they went back into the diner. The man sat down. They spoke for a moment. Jennifer grabbed a menu and went to the counter where she spoke to the waitress. Something was ordered. Jenn paid for it and that was it. Nice eh?

With all the other crap that goes on in this world, my whole day suddenly got better. Thank you Jenn.

Measuring sleep

One of the things I like about my Fitbit is that it measures my sleep. I try to get a good night's sleep... usually between seven and eight hours. Like a lot of people, I do not sleep that well. I toss and turn. I wake up groggy, look at the clock and try to go back to la la land.
The Fitbit gives me a chart every morning, telling me how much time I slept and whether it was light sleep or deep sleep or restlessness.
So last night I hit the bed at 11:41 p.m. and got up at 8:48 a.m. But when all the time was counted, it only came to 7 hours and 25 minutes. (Click on the chart to make it full size.)

My light sleep was more than five hours. The deep sleep was just over one hour.
Interestingly, a couple of weeks ago, the Fitbit recorded a nap I had on the weekend. I hit the couch and was restless for about seven minutes and then went into a deep sleep for more than an hour. All that from napping on the couch. I should nap more often :)

Back to the books ...

I used to have an e-reader. It was a Sony. I liked it. Sony had a pretty good library and some reasonable prices for books. Kobo was the e-book supplier for Sony. A few years ago, the battery crapped out. I set the reader aside and now I don’t even know if I still have in packed away somewhere. Today I bought a new Kobo reader. It was either a Kobo or a Kindle I was looking for. So I signed into my old Kobo account. It was still active. I contacted Kobo and asked if I could still access my previously purchased books… I had 75 books in my account. Kobo said yes.   I like that. Books use hardly any memory. So I went with the Kobo. With the hot weather lately I think I will hide out in my cool living room for awhile and catch up on my reading.

Damn, I shouldn't have done that.

So today began so nicely when I decided to have an iced coffee for breakfast. I added half a cup of strong coffee, some ice cream, milk and a bit of chocolate syrup in the blender. Yeah! It tasted just as good as you can imagine.
I sat down, fired up the Internet and enjoyed my ice drink.  I was drawn to the Timmins obituaries by the news that an elderly man there was killed in an accident downtown on Thursday.
That’s when I began to browse recent obit notices in Timmins. Damn, I shouldn’t have done that. So many familiar faces of people I really liked have died in the six months that I left Timmins. I was truly saddened to read that Ted Tichinoff died in June. A really good guy, and he was just too young to die. Then I saw that Helmut Twardowski died. Helmut was older, but I will miss him.  Also my good friend Ivor Jones. We always had a smile and handshake whenever we met. I turned another page and saw that Sonny Newton died also. Sonny always had something interesting to talk about. What a loss. So it certainly makes me think I have to be more appreciative of the people I meet. 

Something new

I first tried the Fitbit watch back in 2016, figuring it would be interesting to monitor my physical activity and heart rate and things like that. It was. But my first Fitbit fell apart. Daily usage after three years will do that. The electronic part was fine but the plastic bracelet just wore out.

So I bought a new one this week -- The Fitbit Charge 3. It has all the bells and whistles to measure my activity, but I can also monitor the weather and get a vibrating wrist alert when I have a phone call. It also reminds me when I need to get up and move around. I think that's cool.

Seige

I am reading the book Seige, by Michael Wolff, an account of Donald Trumps current presidency. I bought the book last week after seeing a review on NBC. I don't always buy into political reviews, but I have to say this book is scary. I still don't know how it happened but the U.S. voters elected an idiot. Really. Trump has serious mental disorders and the fact that he is so wealthy (Thanks Daddy) has enabled him to hide it.
I was struck by one passage early in the book where Wolff describes the White House insiders as being alarmed by Trump's mental state. (Click on the photo to see larger version)