Ego's Journal

[Salathor]

@guitarplayer, thanks! For now, my plan is to drink coffee in the same way I drink alcohol. Maybe a few times a year on special occasions.

I went 95% caffeine free about four years ago. Same thing, brutal headaches. I went totally coffee free for a while but now I have a cup of decaf probably every other day or so, and I'll drink decaf tea (either black, green, or naturally decaf herbal) almost every night. I notice literally no difference in alertness levels, other than that I don't get run down after lunch--so a big win.

I do drink caffeine if I have to wake up super early for a long road trip, or I have to drive really late at night. I consider that "using" the drug rather than being used by it.

[zbigi]

Once the iPhone is turned on, its location should become visible on their Find My Phone service (if they know about it, and activated it on the phone). However, if you live in an apartment builing, this won't be very helpful even if they come to it (they won't know which flat to come to). Perhaps you could post a notice on apartment building's door so that they know how to contact you if they reach the building?

[Ego]

I charged the phone but it would not boot to the lockscreen. So, I set it back on the windowsill in the sun and figured that if it did not boot by today, I would bring it back to the base and turn it in to the police at the gate..

This morning I arrived for our regular run and handed the phone to my friend while I tied my shoes. He decided to push the power button and the phone magically turned on. I clicked on the Emergency button on the lockscreen and her Emergency Contacts of Mom and Dad appeared. I called Mom as she was at the top. She called Dad who lives here. He just happened to be waiting in the border line and said he would come and pick it up this afternoon.

When he arrived he told me that the family had a birthday party on 7/30 and his adult daughter dropped it while looking for seashells. The tide had taken it about a mile up shore. Impressive the phone lasted four days in the sea and looked to be in pretty good shape. They were thrilled to get it back.

In other news, a neighbor put a small fridge out by their dumpster because the small freezer section was covered in ice. I thawed it. Works perfectly.

[Lemur]

Nice. It never ceases to amaze me how goods that just need a little bit of cleanup or a simple repair just get thrown away. I don’t actively seek them out or jump on the opportunities enough (maybe I should…looks fun) but I’ve acquired 2 free lawn mowers in the past year. One ended up blowing up on me but the other I still use to this day.

Both lawnmowers at the time were posted outside someone’s lawn with “free” on them. Presumably because the owners gave up getting them to run. Both just needed a Carburetor cleanup. Which is not hard to do at all.

[Ego]

The next 36 hours should be interesting. Hurricane Hillary is forecast to hit us at tropical storm strength sometime tomorrow. Apparently a storm of this magnitude has not hit our section of coast since they began keeping records.

Running on the beach this morning I saw many people filling sandbags. We are at the top of a hill so flooding should not be a problem unless my sump pump fails, as a small storm drain runs into the well in the basement and is then pumped into the stormwater system by the pump. I plan to park our car away from trees in an area not prone to heavy runoff to avoid having it flood.

The winds will be some of the strongest we have ever experienced, coming from a direction winds rarely blow. This should result in lots of downed trees. Most of our neighborhood powerlines have been undergrounded, but most of the larger lines that supply our area have not, so I am planning for power outages. I have charged anything that can be recharged. I filled my portable fridge with water bottles and set it to freeze so I can keep our freezers cold for days. I plan to shut down the elevator to avoid having someone stuck in there during the a power outage. The fire department is known to be heavy handed when rescuing people trapped in stuck elevators.

[AxelHeyst]

Take care down there. Will be interested in your observations/debrief. It should be merely very wet by the time it gets to us.

What do you mean by 'heavy-handed' - as in they'll damage the elevator/doors/etc?

[Ego]

What do you mean by 'heavy-handed' - as in they'll damage the elevator/doors/etc?

Thanks. Tenants are calm right now. The entire city is very quiet. We've got a large party on the beach tonight but expect to be home before the rain begins.

Yes. My elevator guy told me a story about how the FD did tens of thousands of dollars of damage to an elevator that was stuck between floors, trapping someone who claimed to be experiencing a medical emergency. When extracted from the elevator it tuned out that their medical emergency was that they had to pee.

Our elevator is 111 years-old and would be very difficult to repair if it were to be damaged, so I am very protective of it. That said, it has lasted this long and is pretty bombproof so it would take some work to damage it.

[ffj]

Interesting. Modern elevators are an easy rescue for the fire dept.

If it is hydraulic, you simply find the control room, lock out/tagout, and then release the hydraulic fluid with a manual valve. This will lower the car unto the springs on the bottom floor. The you use the paddle key to open the outer doors, find the release for the inner doors and let the people out.

If it is cable driven, you have to climb to the penthouse, lockout/tagout, then climb back down to where the car is stuck. Again, use your paddle key and repeat the process. A lot of times the car is stuck between two floors so we always bring a small attic ladder so the people can climb out.

Not sure how your FD damaged your elevator so badly unless the doors wouldn't open and they just broke it.

[Ego]

Will be interested in your observations/debrief.

Saturday night we had a fantastic sunset for the party on the beach.

Yesterday the eye of the storm passed directly over us. We went for a walk as it was passing and wandered around for about an hour, experiencing little more than drizzle and no wind the entire time. In the evening there was one moment where we experienced what I would consider moderate showers and light winds.

@ffj, I will have to ask our elevator guy what the fire department did to damage that elevator.

[jacob]

Interesting. Modern elevators are an easy rescue for the fire dept.

Do you know if anyone ever died "crashing an elevator" anywhere? IIRC, it's just about the safest way to "travel".

[Jim]

It has certainly happened. Interstingly, mechanical elevators fail up, so when they crash they crash into the roof of the building. But mostly they just get stuck.

One of the dangerous things about elevators is the getting into/out of part, especially if they're stuck between floors. People can be guillotined between the moving elevator and the floor.

My elevator guy told me a story about how the FD did tens of thousands of dollars of damage to an elevator that was stuck between floors, trapping someone who claimed to be experiencing a medical emergency.

Yeah, the elevator repair union guys hate the fire department, for understandable reasons.

[ffj]

@Jacob

From what I understand, a cable car has automatic brakes activated if it exceeds a certain rate of fall. So even if somehow the cable were to break, the car will stop. Obviously, this is for passenger elevators that have to be inspected yearly. Freight elevators are a different animal from what I've observed.

Hydraulic elevators are the safest in my opinion. They rarely exceed 4 stories and it would be almost impossible for them to gain freefall.

One of the most fun things I've ever done is ride on top of an elevator with an elevator tech about twenty stories. He was so cavalier about it, telling my crew to "hold on" haha. It was a smooth ride and it was neat to swiftly pass doors as we went up. And that hatch in the ceiling you see people in the movies escaping from? It's bolted from the topside so good luck.

I've never observed an elevator crashing personally while on the job. It was always people stuck and I always considered them to be nuisance calls because there was nothing exciting about them. It's not like we were rappelling down an elevator shaft haha. More like climbing 20 stories in full gear to gain access to the penthouse to shut off power to the motors. That's not fun.

Different cities have different infrastructure so other fire departments may encounter other scenarios based on the age of their buildings.

@Jim

"One of the dangerous things about elevators is the getting into/out of part, especially if they're stuck between floors. People can be guillotined between the moving elevator and the floor."

That's why you lock out/tag out to stop that as a possibility.

[Henry]

I've had assignments in old warehouses buildings where the elevators were still manual. The user had to close the metal gate so we didn't fall out and then steer the elevator until it was level with the floor so we didn't stick our feet into the shaft. It took some reps to get comfortable. I never operated one but watched others. It made me nervous and it's why when I first heard Elon Musk use the transition from manual elevators to automated elevators as an analog for the transition of user driver cars to self-driving cars it resonated.

[Jim]

That's why you lock out/tag out to stop that as a possibility

Absolutely! We've gone the additional step of installing rail blocks after the lockout/tagout step for elevators stuck between floors, as an extra safety measure. I mostly mean, as a civilian, if the elevator stops between floors and the door opens, maybe think twice about getting on or off.

There are some not so great videos out there for the morbidly curious.

[ffj]

Sorry, I was reading your comment as a fellow firefighter. I was wondering why your dept. was taking such a chance, haha. It all makes sense now.

[Ego]

Snipped from A Pirate Looks at Fifty

[Ego]

Thought provoking post by Lousie Perry in her substack Maiden Mother Matriarch...
https://louiseperry.substack.com/p/we-w ... ome-boring

She touches on the story about The Villages in Florida, which we have discussed here: viewtopic.php?p=268971#p268971

Personal freedom is great for the young, fit, and eccentric, not only because it permits them to ‘live their best lives’, but also because it allows them to create wealth... But there is a trade off. At a societal level, we can be rich, or we can be communitarian. I don’t think we can be both – at least, not for long.

The Baby Boomers came closest to enjoying both simultaneously, but only because they were born during an ideological changing of the guard. They enjoyed the high trust, family-centric culture cultivated by their parents and grandparents, and then got to enjoy the youthful rejection of all of that culture’s downsides.

But that’s a trick that can only be pulled once. Historian (and Baby Boomer) Jon Lawrence is kidding himself when he tries to have it both ways:

[W]e should read the widespread nostalgia for community as powerful evidence that people want to find a way to reconcile personal freedom – the right not to have to conform to the expectations of strangers (or indeed of family) – with a deeper sense of social connection

I have bad news on this front: those things are irreconcilable. You cannot promote a culture of optionality, and then also expect people to choose you when you become a dull and onerous option. You cannot buy solitude when it suits you, and then try and buy back company when it does not, because company of the sincere and intimate kind cannot be bought.

Is she right? Can we not have both?

[jennypenny]

I don't think so.

The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that ERE types should be trying desperately to integrate themselves into established groups full of ERE-adjacent or even non-ERE types.

[ffj]

A good start would be to stop with the romanticism for whatever you thought a previous generation or current population possessed/possesses. Poor people stick together because they have no other choice and sometimes a positive side effect is that it brings them closer together and they protect one another. But the highest murder rates are also in poor populations. Also crime in general.

I live close to many Amish. They exhibit wonderful community but it is all held together by becoming insular and a religion that dominates every aspect of their lives. They don't vote, they won't join a military or fight for the country that gives them safe harbor, there are no gay Amish if you know what I mean and they create doctrine over such trivial things such as belts versus suspenders. Is the homemade food worth it?

And can we give the poor Baby Boomers a break? I've never seen a more scapegoated generation in my lifetime. They did exactly what any other generation would have done if given a chance, and if an artificial existence in the Villages playing pickle ball tickles their fancy then I say go for it. You just won't find me there.

A bit of a rant (those types of articles irk me) but I want to say yes, if one is realistic and grounded, then you can have portions of both freedom and strong social ties. Absolutely. Look around you, it's everywhere already if you'll stop and notice. There is no reason one can't cultivate strong relationships while simultaneously enjoying probably the most free life ever experienced in human history.

As most of us are INTJ's or somewhere on the autism spectrum, half kidding here, it's even easier. My goodness, talk about having it made. "Why is he calling me? I just talked to him last month." What did Thoreau say: "I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion." That has always resonated with me and probably a lot of you too.

Probably one of the most liberating attitudes I have ever adopted is that nobody has any obligation to cater to me, especially if they are related to me or are friends. If they choose to do so, it is truly a gift and much appreciated. Maybe by placing less of a burden on others you'll gain more of what you want? This is a bit of a tangent but it works well for me for developing relationships.

[7Wannabe5]

Is she right? Can we not have both?

Well, as with many things, it's absolutely the case that you can't maximize both of these simultaneously. OTOH, I think almost all individuals, more or less, are in possession of Adult Feminine, Adult Masculine, Juvenile Feminine, and Juvenile Masculine energies or quadrants within their personalities. Also, most aspects of social relationships are relative. So, there already exists some possible situation/ conglomeration of humans in which you will inhabit the role of "the boring old uncle" even if you are a 13 year old girlThere also exists some possible situation/ conglomeration of humans in which the boring old uncle will inhabit the role of 13 year old girl (maybe prison yard or walking by line of 80 year old ladies who know how to party and like 'em young at retirement village. ). At highest level of functioning, an individual would be strong (although likely not equal) in all 4 quadrants, and able to fluidly move from one quadrant to another in order to maximize overall functioning with firm yet flexible boundary between self and others in alignment with self-aware self-care.

For example:

Too rigid, distant boundary (locked in Adult Masculine): When my kids turn 18, they're out!

Too porous boundary (bloated in Adult Feminine): I will do anything for my kids!