Tachycardia . .

Judie got this day with a case of Tachycardia.  Tachycardia is said to happen when your pulse rate is over a 100 beats per minute.  Hers was 160 with low blood pressure.  About 10 minutes later it was 150 with low blood pressure.

After about a half hour her heart rate returned to 85 beats per minute and her blood pressure increased.  The attack so to speak has pasted.  She is up and around but I am watching closely.

My reading of Tachycardia on the Internet is that the heart beats so fast, that the chambers do not have time to fill up with blood.  That results in a lower blood pressure.  It can said to be in mechanical terms to be cavitation as what a propeller in water does when it spins to fast initially,

A prolonged period of Tachycardia can result in heart damage.  This short spurt probably does no damage but it is an indicator of problems.  There is a drug for it called Pradaxa. 

She will get an appointment with her Cardiologist Monday.  I am not sure when she will get an actual visit with the doctor but I am sure it will be pretty quick.  He will be the final arbiter as there are several kinds of Tachycardia to deal with.

It is a very scary thing.  I guess I will just have to watch her more closely to make sure things do not get out of hand. 

Good thing I have be reading up on my heart problems.  I know now where to go look for symptoms and what they may mean.  At least I can articulate them and get a answer.  That answer may be scary and out of proportion, thus the need for a doctor's opinion.

Outdoor Light Fixtures . . .

The front of our house has a series of lights that point/face upward, so called accent lights.  They were nice fixtures but not designed to be used as they are.  They are all point upward and they capture water from rains and sprinklers.  They have corroded, paint peeled off and for the most part are located behind foliage.

Our neighbors have simple ones that the flood light screws into, the bulb is exposed so it does not have lens, covers, etc.  They are just basic and work quite well.  They are not finished in bronze, black or silver, they are what they were when they were made, metallic in color, could be painted if one wished to do that.

I thought I could get some on line.  I found literally hundreds of so called accent fixtures and basically all have the same faults as the present ones.  And they all cost about $70 each.  I am looking for the basic $10 special.  I do not care what color they come in.  I can get a $3 can of spray paint and paint them myself.  I see these things all over the place.  But I can not find one in Home Depot or Lowes, they all have the super duper $70 specials.  I do not need the elaborate fixture, just a basic one.

There is a light fixture place around the corner from us and I will pay them a visit.  I am sure the kind of fixture I am looking for is readily available but not pushed as it is basic in color and price.

I find them, just got to keep looking.  I know there are at least five or six supply houses in Fort Worth that supply that kind of stuff.  I will just have to keep looking for it.

Windows 10

I have concluded Windows 10 is a piece of crap.  First I noted that they deleted solitaire and the entire games suit.  That I suppose is now on X box or some other place where one has to pay for it.

So I finally decide to pay for the solitaire and it is another hurtle to get through.  No help.  No instructions, no nothing, Nada!

When I do get some to show up, if flashes on the screen,  the flash takes about five or six times to figure out what it says.  That leads you to another piece of crap, a Windows Password.  What password?

Finally figure that out.  Got a password and it does not work.  With that I gave up.  Just a piece of crap, no help unless you pay a fee.  All it is is a system to collect more money.  It down loads free and one must do it because old Windows 7 is no longer supported.  Windows 8/8.1 probably is in the trash can too.  So one must down load the allegedly "free" Windows 10.  Well nothing is free, got to pay either a monthly fee or an annual fee for solitaire.  No idea how that works because I can not get there because of a lack of function understandable instructions.

I guess I have to just give up on solitaire.  I am stuck with Windows 10.

Not a happy camper, like I said it is a piece of crap.

Thanksgiving . . .

What do we have to be thankful for, much.  A bride and her husband (Amanda Louise and Mike), healthy grandchildren and great grandchildren, three sons alive and well.   So far it has been a good year, Judie has survived a heart attack, seems like ages ago but not really that long back in time.  So we have much to be thankful about.  Yes, we have had little set backs, material things, some health issues but nothing compared to what others are suffering.

I just learned our former neighbor, Carl, who has been suffering from Alzheimer's is now in hospice care and is not expected to live more than a week.  His Kidneys are shutting down, his brain is turning off his body.  Perhaps that is a blessing in disguise but not to his family, his children and perhaps his yet unborn grand children.  A real tragedy.  We shall miss him.

We have seen some massive hate filled crimes in the world (Paris, Syria and Iraq) and our President in his misguided beliefs wants to unabashedly release the same on our citizens.  He apparently personally accepts the risk as being overly stated, and he presses madly on into his arrogant way.  Even those of his own party counsel a slow down and he ignores them.  He is not a President of the people, he is not a visionary, he is too short sighted.  We have an expression from the USAF days, "Heads up and locked."  It means literally damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead.  It means we are ignoring the risk in making  our judgements, we are not looking, checking, or assessing the danger.  I pray we shall not suffer some great miscarriage of justice due to his ego.

Yet Thanksgiving is upon us and we should thank the Good Lord for our gifts, our beneficiaries, our good luck for our Nation as well as our family.  Maybe it is just good Karma, or maybe disaster is just around the corner.  We must be positive and look ahead, and hope and pray for the best yet to come.

Amen!

I Was Right . . .

I was right, the French moved swiftly and thoroughly to track down and rid themselves of a major terrorist.  The news papers and TV news shows are full of it. 

And where was Obama, crying in his milk?  What an embarrassment.  The world is looking down their noses at us.  What a wimp.  What incompetence.  What lack of leadership.  He will go down in history as a worse President than Jimmie Carter.  Hard to believe the Democrats can do it twice within a lifetime.

What a Dabacle . . .

I am ashamed of our President.  We knew he was a wimp but we did not know big of a wimp he is.  And what is worse our Democratic contenders are all following suit one way of the other.  Bernie blames it on climate change and Hillary is just like Obama, in fact she help create this debacle.

We need strong but stable leadership.  We must again take the lead.  Yet one party is being truly out in left field.  Are we returning to a land of disregard for the rest of the world?  Or we becoming isolationists, that is certainly what it sounds like.  A real head in the sand philosophy.

And the current administration is ignoring the majority of the state Governors on resettlement of Syrian refugees.  Vetting they say will go on, but we now know there is little to vet on.  Yes, the CIA and FBI have some but not all of a data base regarding potential saboteurs.  All we have to do is look at what is going on in France today. My God, where is our intelligence, where is our smarts, why are we allowing potential threats into the United States?

The Horror of Paris . . .

I am reeling from the horror of what happened in Paris, France.  We visited the City of Lights and while I was not impressed with the Parisians in general, no city, town or country should suffer what they have had happen to them.

The problem is liberalism and Muslims.  The Muslims have taken over whole sections of Paris.  Non-Islamic people are not welcomed in those areas.  The Muslims have even imposed Shari Law on the locals in those areas and the Parisians, the French have liberally let them do it.  The Muslims are not assimilating into the French society, they remain separate.

All of that spells trouble and boy do they have trouble now.  It is not going to be peaceful in Paris anymore.  I predict the French government will crack down.  But those same troubles are on the horizon for both Great Britain and Germany that both have large unassimilated populations of Muslims.  Remember "Jihadi John" is a Brit (or perhaps was a Brit).  Already, the Dutch have begun to reverse their liberal polices dealing with the Muslims.

And for all the anti gun folks let me remind you that there are severe laws in France, indeed in all of Western Europe, regarding possession of fire arms.  You can not own a gun like you can in the US of A.  Yet, these fanatics pop up with automatic weapons and randomly slaughter people.  The real experts will tell you that the reason we do not see this kind of thing in the US is because they know the general populace here is armed and will react.  The Japanese knew it in WW II and that inhibited their ideas of invading the US.

So remember just because you disarm the populace, you still have these unbridled onslaughts.  Some use knives and knife like weapons too.  So it is not the gun that causes it, it is the nut cases that have guns that cause it.  And in this case, extremist Islamic people are doing it.

Automatic weapons have been banned in the US for years.  No more "Tommy Guns."  Do not confuse semi automatic weapons with automatic ones.  Automatic weapons, machine guns, are rare and are heavily regulated and licensed in the US.

You have to ask yourself how, in a country that has severe penalties for fire arm possession, do these extremisst get submachine guns like AK-47s?  They are smuggled in you say, well of course they are.  So why doesn't the authorities find these weapons.  I guess Charlie Hebdo was not sufficient warning for the Parisians and the French in general.

Time to start profiling the radicals.  Time to prevent resettlement of additional Muslims from Syria or anywhere in the Mideast into the US.  Time to observe and learn from the Israelis.  Time to change from Liberal to Conservative immigration policies.  Time to go into the survivable mode.  Time to change!

We do not want such horror in our borders.

Watching The Squirrels . . .

We have two Red Oak trees in front of our house.  They were planted by the house builder in his efforts to landscape the house.  These trees are maturing now and are producing acorns.  I am told they start at 12 years of age to produce acorns.  Well they have been planted now for a little over 13 years.

The produce rather big acorns.  They are not as big as a Burr Oak but much larger than the locally common Post Oaks.  Thus they are desirable by the squirrels.

We have two young squirrels beginning to feast on the acorns.  Both of our trees are quite healthy and have both been treated for Oak Wilt.  Oak Wilt is a common disease and much worse, is common for our locality.  So we paid a handsome sum for their treatment.  I can say that after the treatment they looked very healthy.  I am not so sure what the treatment is, but it appears to be a solution and the trees readily suck it up.

I have over the years also fertilized the trees.  At first I just used a balance fertilizer, poking holes in the ground at the drip line and pouring a handful of the fertilizer.  Later I used tree spikes, more solid, and probably take longer to dissolve, thus provide for a longer period of time that the trees are fed.  And of course, the lawn people also fertilize two or three times a year.  All of that makes for two pretty healthy and now quite large trees.

By large I mean they are probably about 14 or so inches in diameter.  And they stand well above our roof line providing a great deal of shade to the west facing front of the house.  They are big enough so that the grass will not grow under them, too much shade for the grass.

Any way I watched this little squirrel dash about looking for a place to bury his acorn.  It perturbed him and he chased about looking for just the right spot.  As he was doing that his competitor, another small squirrel scamper up the tree to get his acorn.  That seemed to bother him too.  His turf was being invaded by an enemy, or at least a competitor.

Of course, there are dozens of acorns on the ground as the tree is dropping them all over the place.  He does not really have to climb to get any acorns but he does.  Last year there was a first and a bumper crop of acorns.  So much so that we have a bunch of little trees sprouting all over the place.  That is not a bad thing, just a fact.

Soon the trees will drop their leaves.  The one on the left front does it first and then the second one on the right does it.  It is just genetics.  While they are the same species, they have different parents so to speak and one tree is always ahead of the other tree.  Their cycles are just a tiny bit different.

No matter the squirrels love them.

Is Hillary Listening . . .

Is Hillary Clinton listening to the latest election results across the more liberal regions of the US?  Well maybe some are not so liberal after all.  Houston revoked the local ordinance regarding freakish use of public bathrooms by cross gender folks.  Kentucky elected a Tea Party Governor in a state where the locals are usually all Democrats.  Virginia rejected the Hillary support Governor's bid to get the state Senate to go Democrat, instead it remained the Virginia stayed solidly Republican.

These are local wins, not national politics at all.  But it tends to indicate the country is beginning to swing back to conservative values.  Make no mistake these are  dire losses to the Democrats.  Even in liberal Oregon, a county by votes gave a local sheriff the authority to defy progress gun legislation should he determine the new gun laws are unconstitutional.   Of course, local progressives say it is blatantly illegal.  No matter, it is a sign of the times.

Here in Texas all seven changes to the state Constitution were adopted.  Changes in financing of highways, reduction in property taxes and rules dictating that state elected officials should reside in the state capitol area.   Texas legislature meets regularly only once in two years.  It depends on the legislature committee chairman to make decisions at the state level when the legislature is not in session.  So the state government needs those people close at hand to run the government.  The change to the state Constitution now forces those folks to remain in Austin to do their elected jobs.

There is a continuity to the US voters.  They swing one way and then back again toward the center.  Centrist politicians have the best opportunity for election.  Right now there is no centrist movement on either the left or the right in national politics.  It seems to be more of throw the bums out kind of thing going on. 

I trust Americans.  I think change is in the wind.  We shall see in time.

Back From Nashville . . .

Last weekend we charged over to Nashville, TN for Amanda Louise's wedding.  The wedding was conducted in Franklin, a town a few miles south of Nashville.  It is an old town with tons of new development.

We stayed in the Garden Hilton in Franklin, a nice hotel nestled in the suburbs surrounding by all kinds of new development.  New stores, shops and restaurants abounded.  Lots of twisty roads but all located along Interstate 65 which runs north and south through the area.

We ran up and down I-65 to Nashville, to Alf Lester's home.  He is Amanda's grandfather and was a great host.  While he spent the greater part of his life in New York City, he is a true southern gentleman.  And he has a grand family and beautiful old home that was first his grandfather's house, then his father's house and it is now his house.

Amanda and her husband, Mike, planned out the wedding and it was held in a nice old civic building in Franklin.  Actually it is a restored place that was a jail complete with a gallows inside.  Much of that is gone except a few artifacts like barred windows and an old cell door bolted on the wall.  It is a cater's place now, with many floors, nooks and crannies and a couple of large dining areas complete with a bar.

The affair was first a wedding, then a sit down brunch.  We had Bloody Marys, champagne, and prime rib with eggs for brunch.  It was all nicely done, serve hot or cold as maybe required and quite delicious,  Amanda planned it all out and did a lot of the decorating etc.  It was her day and she truly enjoyed it.  James gave Amanda away at the wedding.  He was in his element at that time.  All of his and Joan's children were there too.

It was cool weather but we may one trip down town and saw the music city in operation.  It was booming town.  New construction all over the place.  It is also an insurance industry town along with publishing.  Of course, music, country music, reigns supreme.  But the city has a lot going for it and is clearly on the ascendancy.  Lots of folks rolling around down town.  Even a pedal bar, that is a vehicle that the patrons sit around a bar and must move the vehicle by pedaling it.  There is a driver/bar keep and so the participants are all happy as can be pumping that machine around down town.

At Alf's we watched local down town university, Vanderbilt, beat Missouri.  Alf is big fan and has a huge TV set, so we enjoyed the game.  Later, we were at Amanda and Mike's apartment house, and attended a pre-marriage party.  Mike and Amanda did the cooking and we had a few beers.  Unfortunately we could not get the LSU game on local TV but did end up watching the first half on a telephone.  We left early enough so that I saw the last quarter in the hotel.

Then Monday we had a long trip back to Weatherford.  We drove all the way.  It rained on us from Franklin to Littlerock, AR.  We broke out somewhere after Littlerock but before Texarkana.  It was over cast until we got into the eastern outskirts of Dallas.  We hit Dallas about 6:30 and into a traffic jam getting through the downtown octopus where I-30 (our route), I-35 and I-45, US 75 North and South and the toll road all interchange along with major reconstruction going on.  It was a mess but we eased through and on to Fort Worth then Weatherford.

We were tired but happy to be home again.  It was a long trip, about 900 miles one way give or take a few miles here and there.  The fall foliage in Tennessee was very pretty, traffic was not to bad though I found trucks in Tennessee traveled at or above the speed limit of 75.  That made some of the driving a bit harry along with the constant rain.