Successful day. Got on the bike again for the first time in many moons. Just 15 mins but will build up from there. Got errands run, and mailed mom's taxes.

Been having problem with latest Algebra section (Graphing Linear Equations) so I redid the entire section and refused to give up until I got all the end-of-section problems solved correctly. I will admit it took a while.

I received a new sensor for my Arduino board: a BMP085, a barometric pressure sensor. I striped down the old experiment and wired the new sensor up. Took a while to get it working properly. When you upload a specific control program into the processor it poles the sensor and prints out the temperature, barometric pressure and altitude above sea level. It does this in a continuous loop until stopped.

The first thing I did after getting it to work was rewriting the control program so that the printed temperature is Fahrenheit (instead of Celsius) and the altitude is in feet instead of meters. I pretty much stopped for the day after that.

The sensor is the small square (at the end of the yellow and red wires). Up close, the sensor looks like this:

I've been wondering lately why I am so attracted to the math course, the Arduino (in the picture, it's that little green board with the infinity sign on it, and the components on that board), and C++ programming again.

I think I may know why I find it so relaxing to be working on those specific things. I think it is the certainty they all present: 2 + 2 is always 4; an electrical circuit obeys specific physical and logical laws; programming in C is an exacting art in which a single misplaced punctuation mark can bring a program to it knees.

After K was diagnosed, life was chaos. Stayed that way for a year after she passed. Then a year of numbness, watching TV endlessly while every single calorie taken in turned to fat because of lack of activity. Wasn't interested in anything.

Not sure when that started changing. I think getting a beer-making kit started me off. Then I dug out the Algebra course. During all of my TV viewing, I watched a large number of science shows and I often found myself in awe at the math/science I saw. I got angry with myself for having forgotten so much of what I had been taught. I got the course to change that. I doubt I'll be able to get to the math of quantum mechanics but it would feel good to start up the staircase and algebra is a first step. 

During my sojourns on the Net, I came across something called the Arduino. It came with two attractive features: it involved programming, an activity I've enjoyed since 1980; and it would enable me to learn about the hardware aspects of programming (resistors, capacitors, diodes, anodes, power supplies, etc.). PLUS, doing the math of electronic circuits would require/support the use of algebra! I got one and started learning.

All three activities require concentration. I have to pay attention to number signs when I solve an equation. The Arduino is flexible but specific in its requirements to function properly. Creating a C program takes exactness and logic. Times flies when you're having fun as the cliche goes. For me, participating in these activities is starting to bring structure to the chaos. They are lighthouses pushing back the darkness.