Not in the mood to write so I scanned the news to see if anything demanded that Small Potatoes opine upon it. Considering that the GOP candidates had another debate last night, you know that the news will be overflowing with articles from all angles.

Tonight:

No shock to hear that Mike Huckabee AND Dr. Ben Carson are accused (with plenty of evidence) of pushing bogus "cures" for profit. As far as I'm concerned, they are both just two more Evangelical hucksters taking advantage of people's faith. I know that Carson is a famed neurosurgeon but being brilliant in that field is no assurance of even common sense in other areas of life. He thinks our tax system should be modeled on one found in the Bible. Iron Age (maybe Bronze) accounting for financial control of arguably the world's greatest power. No thanks. Huckabee I have no use for whatsoever. Radical world view.

Lot of articles about Jeb Bush wimping out after being parried in a verbal attack on Marc Rubio during the debate last night. On another interview today, when pressed with an uncomfortable question, he folded off into some nonsensical  circular logic. I think I know what's happening. Mr. Bush, a privileged, good old boy, white guy who has been fed entitlement his whole life, and who has issued orders to others much of that life, hasn't been talked to in a confrontational way for a very long time. Doesn't know how to react to confrontation he normally doesn't experience.

Glad to see that another privileged snot came into his comeuppance. Owen Labrie gets jail time for an assault against a freshman girl at the elite St. Paul's School in Concord, NH. I think most punks like this go unpunished. Tough girl to stand her ground. Way tougher than him. It was a game with him. Supposed to do a year in jail and 5 probation. Register as sex offender.  Hope he doesn't squiggle out.

TV:

Bones: Habit, besides, nothing else on except news and reruns.

Project Runway: My favorite shows of each season is when the designers return home to create their lines. It turns the finalists from designers to people. Fun show. Starts tonight.

Haven: Dropped this couple of seasons ago but may jump in just to see where things are now.

L.A. Hair: Guilty pleasure reality show which has no reality whatsoever. But I like the characters in it.

Today was not expected. Did chores and ran errands mostly. But then met a former co-worker for a catch-up in a coffee house. As usual, conversation with her was interesting. In addition to her many other great traits, she has a very strong faith, so listening to her helps me recognize a reality with a perspective different than the one in which I find myself. Being human, I envy her surety. I am glad for her. I have seen for myself that her faith strengthens her and makes her capable of much.

I, on the other hand, have no surety whatsoever about anything. Hell, I'm starting to wonder if I am even sane. A peek at the universe through my Internet shows me buffoon politicians, a greedy elite, immoral clergy, wars, pestilence, murder, mayhem and an environmental catastrophe bearing down on us like a cow-catcher-beaked locomotive. An uncomfortable future for those chained to a particular track, a particular destination.

But, although I'm sitting in the midst of a roiling, honest-to-goodness dangerous universe, what really drives me crazy is how our general reality extends from the level of Higgs bosons up to and including perceiving reality as a man who sits in a room watching TV. (Man, how do those levels even coexist?) Understanding what threads or strings ties one level of reality to another is still elusive. At least I haven't run across any understandable explanation. I think the trick (like Einstein did with relativity) is to envision "reality" from a different angle thereby gaining a different understanding. Easier said than done, of course. Einsteins don't come along every day.

Anyway, it was good seeing her and being reminded that each individual sees the universe in his or her own way. Sometimes, those individual universes find a host of things in common so we mostly don't notice that we each do exist in our own. (Haven't thought a lot about wether every individual's version of reality is equally valid. Are some perceptions of the universe more valid than others? Maybe there's a froth of bubble universes linked along common faces. Wonder what the properties of this froth might be?)

Yikes, all this from a chat over coffee. (That's why it's fun talking to her.)

TV Tonight:

Not gonna duck. Looking forward to Halloween-themed episodes of The Middle, Modern Family and Blackish. I find well-crafted, predictable sitcoms comforting. No matter what fertilizer may be hitting a bunch of fans outside, I know these folks and enjoy "safe" (though delusional) time in their universes.

Mysteries of Laura is more a background filler than a main attraction; Mystery Diners, although staged, speaks to my addiction to restaurant shows. (Plus I like to see how many ways people have found to steal); and Little Women of LA.  (No explanation. Too many ways to be misinterpreted.)

A good human day AI. Willing to come out and say hello yet?

Very busy day with little time to think.

Arremony Bakery run then delivery of lawn vacuum from Lowe's. Trip to Coventry, back, up to mom's to roll up garden hose, pick up prescriptions for mom and me, also got flu shot. Stored new machine in rear shed after making room. Tonight wrote letter of thanks to JCB.

Too busy for news yet today but  couple of things standing out in the background:

The cop versus student incident in SC. (This is gonna be another big one.)
Trump falling in polls. (Let the whining begin.)
Walgreens buying Rite-Aid (Grow your business by buying it, then fire a bunch of people.)
Idiot politicians

The item to set off my shudder reflex was an article on a clergyman who tells his congregation that women should live in dread and in fear of their husbands because it made the sex better. How is it possible that this guy has even one woman in the congregation? Most of the wonderful women I've known in my life would respond to that with a giant "Oh hell no!"

Many thoughts lately about people I consider friends. K&A in Az, E in MI, A in NC. In addition to K, three people with whom I had some kind of relationship died recently: J the artist who was my BFF for many years; BN who was  friend during a hard period; and GJ whom I worked with many years ago.

Went to lunch with family. Also visited K's mom, J who fell the other day. Massive black eye and cut on her face.

Couple of things caught my eye in the news:

Didn't realize that the LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gavity-Wave Observatory) was upgraded to Advance LIGO and that it has been running since Sept 17.  Will be exciting to see if there are any results.

Also came across item when South Carolina guy found to have 10,000 stolen guns in his possession!!!!  10,000!!!!!!!  WTF?

Sunday also a pretty light night for TV. When I was a kid, Saturdays and Sundays were the highlights of the broadcast week. Cartoons on Saturday morning, followed by spacemen and cowboys in the afternoons. Evenings were adult westerns and variety shows.

Tonight will be CSI: Cyber, the least satisfying of the CSI franchise. Couple of reality shows (Rugged Justice and North Woods Law), and my favorite of the night, Bar Rescue. I think John Taffer can be a bully and mistaken for Chris Christie's older cousin, but I love to see what he does to the bars he takes on.

Lots to do tomorrow. Lawn vac supposed to be coming and I have to get to the bank.

The usual busy Saturday: errands, visits, cleaning house, grocery store.

Not much on TV on Saturdays anymore. Recording some spooky movie on SiFi but if it's like most of them, I'll watch for 15 minutes then dump it.

Scrap from last night:

The computer equipment under the blue tarp would likely survive the hurricane intact. The glistening tarp formed a tent over the monitor and protected a collection of external hard drives, modems, routers and speakers at the base of the monitor. The entire collection was raised off the cellar’s dirt floor so it was protected from both the pounding rains and the rising flood water.

Gazing with eyes that no longer saw, the computer owner, who had sought below-ground haven from the storm, was sitting against a rock wall pinned through the heart by a massive splinter that had snapped from one of the cellar’s ceiling joists as the storm's raging wind tore off the walls and floor of the house above. Arms extended to his sides—surrendering or pleading his case?—his dead hands are indifferent to the rising tide of pooling water.

Are you here yet, AI?

Guess not. Starting early tonight. Feeling relaxed for first time in long time. Started day by taking mom on her errands: hairdo, stamps, grocery, Home Depot for window cleaner, bank, visit sister-in-law (my aunt) at convalescence home, then home again.

Had contact yesterday and today from a friend at SJ School. Got me to thinking about the transfer of knowledge from individual to individual, generation to generation, past to present. So I decided to pick some video stuff in my virtual library. These are video programs I think everybody should see. (All available on Netflix)

How To Grow a Planet -- reveals how plants, not humans, are the most crucial living things on Earth. Two or 3 episodes. Absolutely mind-bending. Totally, completely fascinating.

Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey -- need to put your problems into perspective? Try this series. It will stretch your mind. In the stretching,  you start to get a feel for man's insignificance. The dinosaurs ruled for 160 MILLION years; then they disappeared. From pants-shitting terror to old bones. Nothing guaranteed regarding survival still. But, although we may still be slime on a cosmic scale, we are at least a slime who conceives of a cosmic scale.

Particle Fever -- Documentary about the search for the Higgs Boson with the Large Hadron Collider. Enjoyable to watch some really brilliant people interact with the reality that is ours. They built the most sophisticated machine ever made by human beings to crack open reality and peer inside. It is a joy to meet so many super intelligent people who pool talents to ask the universe some questions. Makes you proud to be human.

The news did relatively little to upset me today. The usual cacophony of politics, crime, wars, kidnappings, etc. Oops! One thing did tee me off: Some pastor named George Hunley of Louisa, VA was at a Jerry Falwell's Liberty University conference pretending to be a Navy Seal. Glad some Army vet noticed discrepancies in the uniform the punk wore. Nabbed his ass. (Not implying that military personnel are sacrosanct, but nobody I know would call military service easy and we take pride in successful accomplishment of that service. Pisses us off when fakes pretend to be part of a service in which many of its members have lost their lives.

The apple pie was every bit an apple pie. All the same flavors. Used only butter, water, flour, white and brown sugars, crusts, apples. Bake. Done. Yummy.

Looks like many of the commentary shows I check in on regularly are being taken over by the Clinton appearance before Gowdy's committee. Don't want to think about politics tonight.

TV is unspectacular tonight:

Bones (Getting old. Spotted Emily Deschanel as an attack victim on Law & Order SVU earlier tonight!)

Ancient Aliens (Ooooh and the "Alien Agenda," followed by the alien influence on the Civil War.

9 p.m. is bonus time with both Restaurant Impossible and Project Runway. Love shows about restaurants/cooking/chefs and the creativity of Runway's fashion designers. Been watching since 2004 but still not sure what's meant by "fashion forward." Tonight might be the season finale.

Finishing up will be L.A. Hair (a group of hair stylists). I know it's all scripted "reality" but I like the characters and this is a guilty pleasure. At least until Myrtle Manor comes back on.

Just realized some of these programs were ones I used to go to, to deal with Karen's illness. Myrtle Manor was exactly the kind of absurd, chaotic world I found myself in. (Redwood Kings, Tree House Master, Fancy Pools, To Catch a Contractor were all my retreats into universes in which wonderful things were being built. They couldn't stop my poor Karen's drifting away, but their weekly joyousness help me keep my sanity. They gave me (still do) a place to plant my feet to face my quivering fear of a reality I had never envisioned.

Glad to see they got the scum who killed that little 4-year-old girl in Albuquerque. Too many guns out there. Anybody can get one and people seemed less and less disposed each day to act rationally. At the very minimum there should be deep background checks.

Food run day. Needed brown sugar for apple pie. Never made one before. Even weirder, the recipe I'm going to use doesn't even have cinnamon or nutmeg! Didn't think you could even have an apple pie without those.

Additions to the virtual library. (Today was magazine day in the mail.)

TV Guide --- I know this basic information is available for free in the Net but I like the format and find it useful. Worth the cost to me. I've been a reader since childhood. (From 1953 when Dragnet, Martin & Lewis and Ed Sullivan were on the covers to today's Supergirl cover.) Next to Discover magazine, the Guide may be my most useful regular publication.

Drawing --- Love to check out each issue before passing it along to my granddaughter who is a wonderful artist for her age,  Thumbing through it when I came across Boy With a Laptop by David Haines (pg 39). Made me stop. Wondered why a photo was included in a magazine about drawing. Turns out it is actually a drawing in graphite (pencil, I presume?).  Other artists wowed me with how few strokes some people needed to depict distinguishable human visages.

Maxim --- Don't even know where this one comes from. Has my name as subscriber til May of 2016 but somebody must have gotten it for me because I sure didn't. Every issue seems to be like the last. Current issue is perfect representative. Contents: Sports, smelly ads for colognes I will never buy, men's fashion, scantily clad young women, and some times, more sports. Holy smokers. This is the perfect anti-Ken magazine. Everyone of those topics holds the same complete irrelevancy to me.

Nah. Not for the library after all. Maxim is garbage, Drawing is going to GD, Guide of little value after its schedule has run.

Brought AC into basement and freed up window for Buddy. He sits on the sill and looks out. Wait until the birds arrive for winter seeds.

TV tonight includes three of my favorite comedies (Middle, Modern Family, Blackish), Mysteries of Laura (still not sure why I watch),  NOVA covering sinkholes, Nature doing spy cameras watching pets (maybe some Buddy insights), Little Women: LA (OK, so I'm a little strange).

Back to my Russian sci-fi book.

Are you there yet, AI?

Pretty quiet day. Ran errands then mowed some leaves. Visited mom. We are both freaking out over the snowflakes from yesterday. Too too early.

Started a new book today: Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. New translation of Russian science fiction. Excellent so far.

TV shows on tonight that I like:

NCIS and NCIS: New Orleans (usually watch because I like the characters. They are comfortingly familiar. Like NCIS NO because of the setting. I will admit that at times when I feel like the storyline is just way too obvious, I don't finish watching.)

Limitless (New show about taking a pill and opening up full potential of the brain. I've watched it a couple of times and stayed interested enough that this will be my third week watching. Mostly it is pure bullshit. =][[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[-,,,,,,,,,, (Sorry, Buddy just walked across the keyboard.)

People's Couch (A number of groups of people sit around watching tv shows and commenting on them. Record this for background during the day.)

Hotel Impossible (One of my favorites in the Expert Improves a Business genre -- Bar Rescue, Restaurant Impossible, To Catch a Contractor. I like Anthony Melchiorri who travels around to help inexperienced hotel owners save their hotels from closing. Now I know how to check out a room before I sleep there. I am also a lot less likely to eat out randomly.)

I think I may start using this blog as a repository of writing scraps. I guess that's what it has been from the beginning. Just gonna dump stuff here while I'm waiting for the AI to say hello.

There's those bifurcation instabilities again.

Will AI develop before our experience of reality all turns to crap? Sometimes I think that mankind's next big shift is when our knowledge can be accessed by machines and they become humankind while our biological species sinks into a Dark Ages for near all with opulence for a relative few. Just another great civilization lost in time. But if machines develop self-determined algorithms  to run and goals to achieve, who knows where even those privileged few will fare on the survivability index. (Like prairie dogs who hide from danger in holes and tunnels, popping up only when it's safe. But still, relegated to living in tunnels.) I know, who cares?

Well, if I can get a genie in the bottle wish, I'd like to be uploaded to a machine. Form of the machine at first is immaterial; later forms can be endless. I will "miss" many with whom I have interacted over the years but they become fewer each year anyway and there are fewer and fewer who care whether I'm here or not. Anyway, it would be so fulfilling to become a machine that harvests asteroids as resources for Earth, or maybe become a sentient space station controlling a large array of energy transducers that transfer energy from the sun to the entire earth. Energy for everybody. Later, be a ship that explores the atmospheres of planets. Who wouldn't want to armor themselves in a concentrated effort to explore ever-increasing reaches of reality.

Meanwhile, me and Buddy will continue our own exploration into the nature of reality while we await the apocalypse.

It has been a busy day. Woke at 2:30 a.m. and couldn't get back to sleep. Listend to TV, napped, played with cat then finally decided at 5 a.m. to just get up. Washed, dried and put back on all bed linens, washed clothes, vacuumed, cleaned kitchen, distributed meds, folded laundry, paid bills. Plus.

Got so much done so early that I figured I had to take time to catch up.

Had a chance to read the news. Items of interest:

NASA has video of coronal hole the size of 50 earths! I love to run across "size" articles. There is an incredible video on youTube called Star Size Comparison HD which takes you from the size of the moon to the largest known star. That's a mental trip that melts your brain. I had to watch it multiple times to try try to comprehend the mind-boggling progression. If that trip doesn't fry you, try Size Comparison of the Universe 2015. This video takes you from the size of a string (as in string theory) and/or quantum foam to the universe itself. Boom. Splat. Sorry, brain overload.

Another astronomy item was: (Headline from British medium) Kepler Astronomers Scramble to Observe the "Bizarre" Light Pattern Due To Possible "Extraterrestrial Civilisation" Sounds whacky and obviously slanted to attract attention. But the real story is just as cool. Some articles have an interview explaining how many of proposed  (versus possible) explanations have been eliminated as possibilities. (Hence the discussion of possible alien influences.)

Think I have discovered that Buddy is a magical cat. (Maybe even the one from Alice in Wonderland. The Cheshire.) One of his magics is that he can teleport physically. I'm beginning to compile instances as examples. Last night, for instance, I noticed him on the floor napping peacefully when he suddenly started to twitch and make gentle pawing motions. I turned to my monitor and search engined whether cats dream (they do). I turned back to Buddy to further diagnose his condition, but he wasn't there. I was surprised: no sound, but no cat. Went back to original task for a few minutes when I noticed that Buddy had silently rematerialized, only now he was in his little carrier (he likes to sleep in it sometimes so it's on the floor with its door bungeed open).  I'm letting this incident serve as the launching pad for a serious study on the teleportation abilities of cats.

Spent part of the evening reading up on the senses of cats. Figured that if I was going to try using Buddy as microscope to look at the universe, then I should learn what his senses tells him about it. Pretty interesting stuff.

Day got by me today. Don't remember if I mentioned the relative success I had at cardiologist's yesterday. Heart appears strong; pacer working fine. May have had a mild heart attack in past but present discomfort can be remedied by medication alone. Don't need stents or angioplasty yet.

I've decided to build a virtual library. In my head I see a stately room filled floor to ceiling with polished chocolate red-mahogany shelving. The air molecules in the room have a faint whiff of citrus clinging to them. Perhaps from the polish. Right now the shelves are bare but I will start putting books  on them tonight. I would also like to start putting various items on the shelves as well as books. Give the room personality.

The first decorative item going on a pedestal shelf is a kaleidoscope from Italian-born Massimo Strino. The one I see is steam-punk looking. Attracted to it. (Offered by Uno Alla Volta, page 63)

The first books will be:

A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman (A history of 14th century Europe. Sound boring? Often lethal, never boring. But what really makes things spooky is how similar their society is to our society. We'd have magical abilities in their eyes but the underlying instabilities are there again.  The human components seem awfully reflective - hence the mirror of the title.)

Order Out of Chaos by Ilya Prigogine (Yes, THAT Prigogine — as in bifurcation. I tried to reread him recently to refresh my memory of the path that brought his work into my view of reality. Tried couldn't. The mechanics of chemical systems put under stress were too much for me this time. Too far away from my own chemistry classes. But I keep the book because even if I sometimes misstate the specifics, the proof is still in the book. )

Famous Science Fiction Stories by Raymond Healy and J. Francis McComas, editors (Because Isaac Asimov autographed his included short story "Nightfall" when I met him as a student before his lecture at UConn. I also keep in it a letter from a friend in the army. Sergeant Mike St. Clair wrote us a letter on Nov. 21, 1970 from Vietnam affirming his desire to return home from his second tour to his new daughter. When we sent a Christmas card the following  month to his family, we found out Mike had been killed a couple of days after writing the letter to me. I've had that letter with me since 1970. Years later Karen and I looked him up on the Vietnam Memorial Wall.

Introduction to Haiku by Harold Henderson. (My first exposure to the impact of good haiku was this book from second or third year high school. I've toted this book around for over 50 years. Still glad. Once again this winter, in the middle of a multi-foot snowfall, I will open to page 185 and read:

Loneliness

No sky at all;
     no earth at all – and still
          the snowflakes fall ...
Hashin

Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Charles Sheffield. (Ultimately wound up being my favorite science fiction author. Hard science with grand visions. Found this copy in a trailer park swap library while traveling to Louisiana Mardi Gras. Pure serendipity. Lead me to the rest of his work which I devoured until this brilliant scientist-writer died of cancer.

So where are we tonight?

This whole thing with the Republicans having no Speaker of the House is unsettling. Reason to be nervous: another political system out of balance. Adds stress to the overall system.

There may not be a way to tell how much stress a system can absorb before exploding – the whole Heisenberg uncertainty thing. There may, however, be a way of knowing. Humans have become so clever at constructing the universe around them. I have been exposed to many intellectual shining “stars” comprising humanity’s history.  Our very existence shows you should never underestimate a puny little human.

A future bifurcation?: People who choose to meet the universe’s hostility to life in general with genetic manipulation (we design bodies specific to their environments), versus people who choose to improve their survival chances by merging with machines (upload the mind and away we go ensconced in armor built to function within incredible environments). Either way seems to me to be full of potential. Go anywhere, do anything. Mankind at a whole new level. Holy smokers, Marvel Comics come to life. Everything before this point would become the New Dark Ages.

We are so close to being able to make that choice. Will we really just piss it all away? Is it built right into nature that the surviving few will care little about the rest? Will they let us get there? Don’t they see the potential in mankind? (On the other hand it might be that they see us for what we are.)

I’m so depressed when I look at the universe through my glasses of pessimism. But, after all, I was a liberal arts major and I have been exposed to eons of mankind’s shattered advance and the part that savagery played in all those years. Stone-tipped spears to pistols on campus in the hands of pissed off self-entitled white boys. It seems to me we should be further along in cooperation given our tenuous grasp on life.

And yet those very paths of intellectual discovery that brought about my despair, also brought me into contact with philosophers, artists, writers, scientists and engineers who speak to my soul. Individuals who passed ideas from one age to another. Individuals who used ideas to advance us as a species.

We could soon be losing all of this. Again.

My gosh, Trump IS America. At least vast portions of it. Have we really become loud-mouthed buffoons who trump-et instant solutions to the rest of the globe with the intellectual level of reality TV? What must the rest of the world see? We insist that our wishes be observed without having to listen to those of anyone else. We point our fingers at perceived moral outrages displayed by others while hiding our own depravities until caught. We somehow occupy every moral high-ground in inverse proportion to our actual standing.

Is this the moment in history when America announces to the rest of the world that we are no longer serious in participating in cohabitation of the planet? We apparently don’t want to work together for mutual survival solutions even though resources and assets are being channeled to a small, select group of faceless emperors who rule invisibly from hidden lairs. Is Trump fiddling while Ameri-Rome crumbles?

Down the environmental road, in what I believe will be an astonishing short time, we will find dwindling resources supporting smaller and smaller populations. But that’s exactly what the super rich need: just enough people around to serve their needs under rigid controls so there is less chance of problems. Point on this predicted path: Time to cull the herd.

Climate change is going to transform the face of the earth. Things are already changing: huge surges of migrating populations; significant changes in our experience of seasonal weather over periods of time. Droughts, floods, quakes, fires, winds, shifting water tables are transforming the surface of the globe. Populations, which have to respond to environmental pressures, will redistribute themselves in new patterns. It’s been that way though since the beginning of man’s struggle to survive. 

Don't expect that knowledge will make the actual experience of history wrenching any easier.

Maybe I should stop watching so many news/opinion shows. They are making me paranoid as to the condition of the world. Just politics can keep me riled (I'm pretty sure I'll be visiting this subject again), but news in general appears to be getting more pessimistic.

On the one hand, I see us poised on the birth of a time when man will change his very nature. Man and machine will begin to merge. We've gone from bleeding with leeches to manipulating genetic structure. From smoke signals to entangled quarks. We can toss out a bus-sized machine past a small planet nine years (?) and 4.5 billion miles (?) away and send back pictures. Robots and AI getting closer. Nano stuff. We bend electricity light magnetism to our will.

On that other hand, at that very moment our species is extending its command over the physics of its universe, we have vast portions of the world in which survival is a life-and-death struggle every moment and often ends in horrific ways: the rapes and murders of women and children; decapitations for believing in the wrong god; being burned to death for being different. Violence and pain are raging, nation-sized cancers all over the planet.

Can a dichotomy be any more defined? I swear we are about to slam into a Prigogine bifurcation. The transition is already upon us. The whole social system is becoming more unstable. Look around. So much is out of whack. The pace of change is accelerating. Increasing disparities will eventually trigger an explosion that wrenches the entire world.

The scariest thing about a Prigogine bifurcation is that it is inherently impossible to know what the post-system will become when (and if) it reorganizes.

Howard Wolowitz's striking of a match on Big Bang Theory exploded in my head. Finally, an inkling of a way to approach the situation of perceiving reality. Not in the mood to even start organizing the facets involved tonight but things I don't want to forget.

1. How Big Bang made the universe fall into place;
     Is it a worthwhile activity given the condition of the world?
     How can we make this realization work toward an understanding;
2. How Buddy the cat lends himself to showing how the universe is constructed by the perceiver;
3. Need to assess my relationship to death;
4. Because so many things tie together, it might be beneficial to use something like Scrivener to do the actual writing and organization.
5. How much of this to I bring to this blog.
6. Decide if this blog worth any effort. What are my alternative writing activities?

I saved Big Bang to watch it some more. Tonight is the revelation but I want to see what happens within the show that sparked it all. This is so cool: Big Bang ties to THE Big Bang and also to my big bang.

Today is astonishing:

Stress test at hospital this morning turned out OK. Started lucky by being first patient of the day for this particular procedure, then having my own cardiologist conduct the test, being told that there has been no heart attack and the apparent efficacy of the med he assigned might be a successful solution to the discomfort I've been experiencing. See him next Monday for results. Have to ask whether stress could cause the symptoms.

Went from feeling terrible to actually feeling wonderful this moment.

Why am I going to do this? Does it matter if no one else cares?

It seems amazing that the perception of reality can change so rapidly. Layers upon layers of perceptual levels; a stew of systems interacting is astonishing complex currents. A giant fish tank of roiling waters. Sheets of realities intersect (Me and Buddy) much like those theorized by today's physicists about reality at the universe level.

Long day.