Running again!

I used to love running. A long time ago. Over twenty years ago. Then my medical mysteries became debilitating, and I was unable to run. For over 20 years. Then a couple of years ago, my general practitioner finally figured out what all the specialists missed. My thyroid was busted. So I started taking a thyroid hormone replacement, and I got a lot better. But I had other problems. Most of the remaining problems went away when I quit taking a medicine that was supposed to help with the painful burning sensation in my feet (peripheral neuropathy, probably due to the thyroid deal).

I started exercising again. I included walking. Faster... and faster. Then I tried jogging. Boy, did that feel great! After rebuilding a little leg strength, one day I broke into a real run. The first time in over twenty years. Wow! I loved it! I didn't run long, I didn't run fast, and didn't run far, but I ran! I increased all my exercising and ran more and more. Still not a lot, but getting better and better. I had more energy for other things, too, and started doing more things in my spare time.

Then my muscles started freaking out. Muscle relaxers didn't work. Massage made it worse. It got to the point that just touching muscles could hurt a lot. More doctors. More tests. Lots more. An unfortunately familiar pattern. On high-pain days when I couldn't work a full 8 hours, and not knowing what the cause was, I wondered how long I had left to live.

Then I had an annual physical, at my general practitioner's office. They were more worried than usual because I looked so bad. But, a few days later they called and said my cholesterol levels were finally in the good range, and I could quit taking Lipitor. Within a few days, my painful, debilitating muscle problems starting going away! Why didn't the doc's figure that out? Well, severe muscle problems are known side effects of Lipitor, but apparently most people who have those particular side effects have them very soon after they start taking it, and I had been taking it for a couple of years without any problems.

But, once again, I started getting better, exercising more, and finally started running again. Just a few paces at first, then fifty feet, then a hundred. When I got up to where I could do a slow run half-way home from the train station, I signed up for the Cherry Blossom 5K run-walk on April 6th, to give myself an external goal. It's only a 5K run-walk, but it's a real race. My first goal was just to finish, no matter how long it took. Unlike the 10 mile Cherry Blossom, there's no bus to scoop you up if you go too slow.

Well, I joined the fitness club in the building where I work, I've kept exercising, and a couple of weeks ago, I ran the whole way home, about a half-mile. And today... today I ran 3.1 miles on the treadmill... that's 5 kilometers, folks. My top speed was only 9 mph for a few paces, but I did 6 and 7 mph for sustained periods. Of course, the rest of the time I was walking. Total time? 32 minutes, 23 seconds, for an average pace of about 5.7 mph.

The race is a week and two days away, on an early Sunday morning. I'll let you know how it goes. If I live to tell...

Protest of Electronic Voting Machines

This morning, February 12, 2008, I appeared at my polling place in Mosby Elementary School to cast my vote in the Democratic presidential primary, but refused to use the electronic voting machines, due to their inherent unreliability. The chief and assistant chief of the poll determined that this circumstance (my claim that the machines are unreliable) was not clearly covered by their rule books, so they phoned the Fairfax County Electoral Board. After they spoke to officials there, a County official also spoke to me by phone. After a lengthy discussion, the official on the phone spoke to the assistant chief of the poll and authorized me to submit a provisional paper ballot, although they were unable to assure me that my vote would be counted. They further explained that I have the right to appear before the County Electoral Board at Noon tomorrow at the Fairfax County Government Center, Room 315-C, to defend my ballot.

I will appear before the board and base my case on Virginia Code 24.2-642, which begins, “When any voting or counting device becomes inoperative in whole or in part while the polls are open…”, and the fact that it is impossible to know if the voting computer is recording all votes accurately.

My position is that there are only two ways for a person to know that an electronic voting machine is accurately recording votes and thereby fully operational. 1. Have the voting machine produce a paper record that allows each voter to confirm that their vote is accurately recorded on the paper record and use those paper records to validate the records and tabulations of the voting machine, or 2. Have a person who understands every line of code in the software and both the original and current condition of every physical circuit in the computer hardware verify that no errors can occur. In the first case, the use of a voting machine is rendered moot except that unvalidated election results can be produced very quickly. The second case is not humanly possible, and even if it were, we should not trust our election results to any single person.

Official reasons I have heard for the use of electronic voting machines are: 1. They save money, 2. They provide rapid results, and 3. They count more accurately than people counting paper ballots. Unofficial reasons, I suspect, include overly optimistic marketing presentations of the companies who manufacture voting machines, which gloss over the systemic flaws in the voting machine concept.

The fundamental purpose of an election is to provide citizens with the ability to elect representatives by popular, anonymous votes, and there must be a method by which ordinary citizens can validate all votes, otherwise our elections are vulnerable to errors serious enough to effect the outcomes of elections, whether those errors are intentional or unintentional. The purpose of an election is not to save money nor to provide rapid results.

Saving money and providing rapid results should only be considered for methods that improve voting systems that meet the fundamental purposes of elections, which must include the possibility of comprehensive verification. A claim that voting machines count more accurately than people is not true in the case of machines without voter-validated paper trails, because without voter-validated paper trails, it is impossible to know the accuracy of the voting machines' records. The executives and technicians at the voting machine companies say, "Trust us." I, for one, will not.

For these reasons, I will never again use a voting machine that does not include a paper record that allows me to verify that my vote was correctly recorded, so that the rapid-tabulation systems can be verified. I will continue to appear at my polling place in every election and request either a fully auditable system or a paper ballot.

John Lambert
Fairfax, VA

For further reading:

What's More Important: Accurate Elections Or Fast Results?

You Can't Patch An Election

Black Box Voting

E-Voting Undermines Public Confidence In Elections Even Without Evidence of Wrongdoing

Judge Voids Election Results Over E-Voting Results That Couldn't Be Audited

Article index of voting machine issues

UPDATE: 2/13/2008

Well, I got to defend my ballot with the Fairfax County Electoral Board, and it was a fun experience. They had 3 voting members for this process and 2 advisors, and they were all intelligent, reasonable people who were focused on following the rules to ensure the integrity of the election. Excellent! It was determined that the person who authorized me to complete a provisional ballot should not have done so, as the rules provided those only for people who were not in the polling book, but contended that they should have been in the book, not for people who wanted a paper ballot because of any other reason. Well, the rules for the Board are different from the rules at the poll, so the issue was now different. One voting member took the position that I was eligble to vote, and they had my sealed vote, so they should count it. Another took the position that I shouldn't have received the provisional ballot in the first place, so it should not be counted. The third's position was that I was trying to "strong-arm" a way to use a paper ballot, when the rules did not provide for that (which was correct), so he was opposed to counting my vote. Then they asked the advisors about precedents and were told that this issue has arisen in the past, and the votes were counted. Based on that insight, they all agreed to count my vote.

The best thing, though, is that when I inquired about how I could pursue moving Virginia away from non-voter validated voting systems, they told me that it had already been done. Last year (I probably missed this in my research because it was so recent), the Virginia Legislature passed a law that all new voting equipment must include the option to process paper ballots. And there will be at least four in use in Fairfax County this November. (And they said that they would make sure that one of those machines was in my precinct!)

Everything Has An Upside

Personally, I don't recommend you try to develop peripheral neuropathy for any reason, but if you're stuck with it, there can be advantages...

When I was in the neighborhood of ten years old, I accidentally raked the index and middle fingers of my left hand across the rotating blade of a table saw. It sliced into each finger tip parallel to my fingernails and took out chunks of meat. I was surprised at how much blood could come out of fingers, since there aren't any arteries that far from the heart. But those little veins and capillaries carried an awful lot of blood. Yuk. I hate seeing blood. Especially mine.

Of course, the wound healed over within a week or two, but those fingertips were still sensitive to touch for a long time after that. Eventually, though, they got to where I didn't notice them any more.

That is, until the first time I tried to play a guitar. Trying to fret the strings was too painful to endure. Yeah, I know, it hurts every new guitar player until calluses form. Except my index and middle fingers hurt far worse than the other two fingers, especially when I pressed right on the scars in certain directions, so I'm pretty sure that was worse than usual. At any rate, it was bad enough to keep me from trying for more than a few minutes once every few years.

Now, take that scenario, add a couple of decades of nerve deterioration in my hands, and viola, those two troublesome fingertips no longer hurt too much to fret a guitar! They still hurt a little bit, but I figure they're about the level that most people would normally feel. That's where my neuropathy really pays off! :) And as an added bonus, my ring and little fingers on my left hand don't hurt at all... they're too numb!

My best neuro-doc has also told me that my peripheral neuropathy may improve eventually, since it was caused by deficient levels of thyroid hormones that is now being controlled. So, I may lose numb-finger "advantage", but if I do, you can be sure I'll have well-developed calluses long before then. Make hay while the sun shines, as they say, or in this case, make calluses while the pain is numbed!

Why guitar? I couldn't stand the poor sounds I was getting out of my violin long enough to get to the point where it wasn't too annoying. I don't really care much for the sound my autoharp makes. My trumpet is a little too LOUD to practice whenever I want. The guitar is easy to get good sounds out of if you can hold the strings down, I like the sound I get with thumb picking/strumming (don't care much for the sound I get from picks), and its quiet enough that I can practice any time I want!

Oh, and why are my hands and arms numb, but the nerve damage in my feet causes a nasty burning sensation? I dunno. It's relatively common for peripheral neuropathy, but no one seems to know why some people get burning sensations vs. numbness in various places. That's one of the 23,917,603 reasons I say that medical science, like all other sciences, is still in its infancy.

Ouch Relief

Well, the nerve blocks were nice for a few hours each time, but then they wore off. Nothing was helping much and we (the doctors and I) weren't making useful progress in figuring out exactly what was wrong with my muscles, ligaments, and tendons, let alone why.

I can now report very good news, however. About a month ago, I had my annual physical, which showed that my cholesterol was finally back into a healthy range, so I stopped taking Lipitor. A few days later, my muscle/ligament/tendon problems were noticably better, on average. And kept getting better. I didn't want to blog this until now, thinking that couldn't be it, and I might start getting worse again.

My neurologist has just told me that considering all the circumstances, he's certain that my muscle problems for the last 9 months was indeed due to Lipitor side-effects, despite the fact that I was on Lipitor for a couple of years before that without those effects. As I've started telling friends and relatives about the Lipitor connection, now they've been telling me, "Oh, you were on Lipitor? I could have told you that causes muscle problems." Nothing like hindsight...

We have no idea why those side-effects kicked in all of a sudden, but boy, what a relief to be rid of them, and to know what the cause was. That was kind of like my nasty experience with Cymbalta, which the neuro-docs put me on a high "theraputic" dose of to try to ease the burning in my feet. I was on that for a long time also before side-effects kicked in and knocked me sideways.

So, I've been perking up, muscles/tendons/ligaments are back to "normal" for me.
I've gotten caught up at work, and things are looking rosy again. And my hobby activity is picking up again, as evidenced by this post! The only pills I'm on now are Levoxyl (thyroid hormone replacement) and 3000IU/day of vitamin D, so I shouldn't be getting any new side-effects from miscellaneous drugs.

A moral to this story? Perhaps that perscription drugs can be just as dangerous as illegal drugs. And no, I don't use illegal drugs... I have enough problems without intentionally causing more.

Leg? What leg?

My left leg (below the hip/groin area, above the ankle, and excluding the knee), doesn't hurt as much as my right leg, and I think that can only be due to the nerve block & cortisone derivative treatment earlier this week. The funny thing is, those parts of my legs hurt so much less than other parts, the other parts have held my attention to the point that I didn't even realize until now that those parts of my legs were hurting. Hm... is that good or bad?

Well, I'm still going to do my best to follow advice I got many years ago, from my first pain management specialist: ignore it all as much as you can and get on with things. That doesn't always work, but it's better than the alternatives.

Ouch

My excuse for not posting in a long time is that I've been in a lot of pain. Peripheral neuropathy due to hypothyroidism. Yuk. I've been able to keep up with my full-time job, but just barely. Yesterday a neurologist injected some nerve-block type stuff in some muscles and tendons in the left side of my butt. The goal is for us to compare how that effects my left side to my untreated right side. It's a diagnostic process right now. The first few hours were pretty nice, with a neglible amount of pain in my left butt, and even a little less pain in my left leg, but then it started fading, as expected. I'll see that doc again in two weeks. Right now, I'm really wishing I could have a pain free part of me again.

Pig Track

7 June Update: This week, 143 even. I think next week's weight-in will be the final one for this event.



19 Apr Update: Last week, 146.5, this week, 144.5. My long term target was 145, but I think the Pig Club considers it a good thing if you weight less than the weight that was your original target.


What is the Pig Club?

6 Apr Update: Last week I wasn't at HUD, so I missed the weigh-in. This week I'm down to 147 even.

15 Mar Update: Last week I was down to 148. This week I'm down to 147.5 -- just haven't been very hungry...

24 Feb Update: Last week I was up slightly to 153. This week I was down to 150, earning myself the coveted title of Lean Machine of the Week. Who cares about emmies, grammies, and oscars?

9 Feb Update: The Pig Club's tracking system can't handle a goal of staying the same weight, so I've changed my goal to lose 5 pounds from my starting weight. And I'm headed in the wrong direction...

Update & Poem

Hmm. I haven't posted in over a month. Well, that's about when my muscles started going on strike. The first 3 1/2 months of this year seemed like my body was improving steadily, with just a few minor setbacks now and then. Then my muscles started tightening up.

No big deal, I always have a prescription of muscle relaxers (methocarbomol) from my doc, and I usually keep some on hand. I just take those for a day or two, the muscles get over whatever was causing the problem, and I'm no worse for wear. Except this time.

The problem hasn't subsided, is worse than ever before, and the muscle relaxers have barely kept me functional enough to do my job. I have an appt this coming Friday to talk to the doc again to try to figure out what the cause is so I can start improving again. She's a great doc, I procrastinated making an appt, and it takes a long time to get one, because she's so popular.

---

Okay, this isn't Carla's poem, it's mine. But I don't wanna create a new category for one entry, and "Carla's poetry" is the closest. It's the only poem I've ever written that I like. And I thought it had been lost forever, but Carla had copied it years ago, and just found it. This poem is from a guy (me) who used to worry about the "waste" of giving cut flowers as a present, until he realized...

An Economist's Justification

"A waste of money,
these flowers will rot!
They'll dry up and wither,
and then what have you got?"

Yes, I know my dozen messengers
will not produce like kind,
but even if they do prove brief,
I certainly will not mind.

For regardless of their life-span,
and their non-regeneration,
yet they provide a forum
of unequaled demonstration;

The Love that these kind friends reflect
says, "I love you a lot!"
And when these sweet red roses,
with their joy have been forgot,
your knowledge of my love for you,
of a certainty, will not.

Thus their cost is not so great,
when their true benefit you see --
for these flowers tell the whole world
that you're worth everything to me!

P.S. Regarding that last line. You always have been. You always will be.

Prosperity for Posterity

Prosperity for US
Well, I read about Prosper.com a few months ago in Readers Digest magazine, but forgot about it until this past week. It's a pretty cool peer-to-peer loan system for U.S. residents founded by the guy who started ELoan.com, and I've opened an account (it's free) and started fiddling with it. (For details on how it works, visit their web site.)

This prompted me to look at our debts, and I was surprised to find that we have 3 credit card accounts with small balances that have exorbitant interest rates. So, I studied up how to apply for a loan on Prosper, joined a group, got my info verified, and posted an application for a $5k loan to pay off those 3 credit cards. I put in the maximum interest rate allowed by Virginia, 11%, and it got fully funded within minutes. However, I'm letting the listing stay open for the maximum time of 10 days, and since it was fully funded at 11%, additional lenders (individual investors) have been bidding to get a piece of my loan, thereby bidding down the interest rate, which is now below 10%. Way cool! Check it out:

You can borrow, you can earn money by lending, or you can earn money by managing a group.

Prosperity for the rest of the World
One guy borrowing money via Prosper is using the money to reinvest, partly in microloans at kiva.org. I never heard of kiva.org, so of course I had to check it out.

Kiva (from the Swahilli word for "agreement") allows anyone to make microloans to the working poor in some of the poorest areas of the world. The staff at Kiva vets each borrower, and though the amounts are generally small by U.S. standards, they can have profound impacts on the people who receive these loans.

Some of these folks may never have another opportunity like this to improve their and their families lives, and you can help. You can make a small loan to someone on the other side of the planet and improve their lives forever.

Physics 4.0

Light -- is it a particle, or is it a wave? The answer, of course, is that it is neither, or both, depending on your point of view. But it's not one or the other.

I was looking forward to starting a new career in physics someday, probably two or three careers from now, and resolving the particle vs. wave discrepancy. Alas, it looks like I'm too late, as Xiao-Gang Wen (MIT) and Michael Levin (Harvard) have come up with what may be just that resolution. Here's a summary explanation in New Scientist magazine.

String-nets. It's elegant. Its covers a lot of concepts. It appears to be validated by the existence of a mineral named Herbertsmithite. (No kidding, it's discoverers named it after a man they admired.) And I'm betting it will even lead directly to a quantum theory of gravity.

If Newtonian physics was Physics 1.0, then Relativity could be Physics version 2, and Quantum Mechanics could be Physics 3. String-nets could be the beginning of Physics 4.0. Pretty cool!

But... so far it doesn't seem to resolve my dilema of entanglement vs. relativity, so maybe there's still room for me to make a contribution to physics by redirecting my efforts. Eventually...

Simple vs. Complex

A friend recently suggested that complex people tend to have simple ring tones (ring, ring) on their cell phones, and simple people tend to have complex ring tones (musical ditties), just based on her personal observations.

So, is my ring tone simple or complex? Well, my phone's almost always on vibrate, so I don't know what that says about me. But for those rare occasions when I have the sound on, my ring tone is a recording of my own voice saying, "Telephone... telephone..." What do you think? Is that simple, complex, or just strange?

Taking People For Granted

I've always heard that it's wrong to take people for granted.

Why is that?

Carla and I have lots of moments that we concentrate on each other and drink in every little nuance of our friendship, but the vast majority of the time, we don't... we take each other for granted.

Between the times we verbally profess our love for each other (about every few hours), we take it for granted that we love each other. Between the times we're physically intimate (about every few hours), we take it for granted that we're being faithful to each other. [Just kidding about being intimate every few hours... sometimes we take a day off to rest!] Between the times we make plans together, we take if for granted that neither of us will make big decisions without involving the other.

So, yes, we take each for granted. Is that a bad thing? We know each other, we help each other, and we trust each other, and that's why we can take each other for granted. That seems to me like a pretty wonderful thing!