It's a little bit late but it has been a hectic month. I'm sorry he missed.

HEALTH

Once again, my health laid me low from out the blue. Refreshingly, although it is a back injury, it is something completely different than anything I've experienced before. I am unsure if it is related to my new calisthenics program. But it probably is. I am writing today, because I feel renewed energy from the fact that for the first time in weeks, my back actually feels OK. What was happening was that in the morning every time I sat down even for a little bit, be it at the toilet, or sitting in front of my computer, my low back went into spasms. Not spasms exactly, but it became very painful. Then I had to either not workout, take Prednisone, use the hell out of my hot pack, or all three.

This is not like before where I would have muscle knots that would lock up and put me down for weeks. So that's an improvement. It's very possible that the new routine was simply stressing my back muscles in ways it was unused to. I have noticed that every time I do one of these workouts, I am almost shaking at the end of it, and the next day I am feeling muscle soreness. Not “Oh my God I'm going to die” muscle soreness but just the soreness that comes from a healthy workout. I am in the middle of week 8 of a 12-week program, and I think it was really worth the time I put into it. I don't know if I've improved as much as my trainer thought I would, but I am not unhappy with the results.

Also discovered that my thyroid numbers were all over the map. I had a scan done, there are still some nodules on my thyroid, and it is smaller than it was a few years ago when it was scanned, not unforeseen given that I have hypothyroidism (~5% of the general population suffer from this). But apparently, it's time to adjust my medications again, which may account for my worse than usual fatigue. Two opinions are better than one, but I had an endocrinologist in Bangkok telling me that I need to try to reduce my medication because I may be taking just a little bit too much, whereas the GP here in the Philippines said I need to keep the medication the same and increase my vitamin D.

In this case I'm going to reduce the medication by 10% as the endocrinologist suggested, and I trust her because this is her specialty, but at the same time I have read that increased amounts of vitamin D can be very helpful, so I'm going to do that as well, and in three months, I will test my numbers again and see what's going on.

There definitely seems to be something off with some of my biomarkers. I'm not seeing anything about cancer, but there's something with my red blood cell count and my white blood cell count that indicates some sort of an infection. I don't seem to have anything so I'm not sure what's causing that. It can be very confusing.

In addition, and I have no idea if I have mentioned this previously, but I have been doing testosterone replacement therapy [TRT] for some years. Without it, my energy levels, even with my thyroid medication, drop to nothing. That too seems to have been problematic. It was a combination of using a different blend of testosterone, and some of the testosterone I was using was expired [I know. Stupid, right?]. You really must stay on top of this stuff. You can't just be on some regimen of one sort of the other and just be on autopilot.

You have to check constantly to find out whether or not you were doing the right thing or not. I've said this before, I believe my health is pretty good. I don't have any life-threatening diseases or conditions, but my energy levels and my back pain, are enough to thoroughly cack up my life. And it has been a constant struggle to try to figure out how to get those under control. And I haven't managed it yet. But the struggle continues. 😊

Political Thoughts

Biden resigning. Well, it's about time. I am not saying that he is the worst president we ever had, and he's certainly better than that malignant narcissist from the other party, but it is beyond belief that he took as long as he did to realize that he is not up for the job anymore. My only thought is either he was already mentally affected enough that he couldn't realize how bad he was, or, more likely, he was so addicted to the power of the position that he was in a permanent state of denial.

Speaking of the malignant narcissist, I have attached a link down below from an editorial from the New York Times. I cross checked the first couple of things and I did find them independently confirmed. So, the malignant narcissist is a pathological liar as well. If there had ever been any doubt.

I know he is appealing to desperate people (and his cronies of course) that are just looking for someone to take charge and fix things. I'm sorry, but being afraid, being at the survival level, having huge amounts of problems in your personal life, is not an excuse for not recognizing that somebody is just a bad person. And in his case incompetent as well. He isn’t going to fix things. He isn’t capable.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/24/opinion/trump-lies-charts-data.html?unlocked_article_code=1.9k0.9o_I._Bsfu37wRb3r&smid=url-share

And why might I care about what happens in the US election? Well, because American or not, the president of the United States affects the rest of the world. And I think Trump's bombastic, antagonistic, ignorant style of confrontation is a disaster waiting to happen.

Book Review

I am reading, God knows why, a history of the FBI by a gentleman called Tim Weiner. Well, as to why, it's because I think it is something that is worth knowing. I am, however, shocked and appalled at some of the stuff that went on with the agency, especially during the years with Hoover. I can thoroughly recommend the book to anybody. I'm also going to read his [Weiner’s] history of the CIA and the most recent book that he came out with that explains that explores the relationship between the United States and Russia. The extent to which J. Edgar Hoover went in order to monitor Americans and non-Americans for that matter, beggars belief.

I fully understand that there will always be conflict between the goals of safety and security and freedom and civil liberties. For what it's worth, my position is, 100%, I would vastly prefer less safety and security and more freedom and civil liberty. This could turn into a long diatribe, but I won't do it.

The one thing I will say is that you must understand that once you give people and organizations power over you for the sake of “security”, those motherless fornicators of diseased donkeys will never give it up until you pry it out of their cold dead fingers. Look at the TSA and Homeland Security. China. Russia.

Idle Thoughts

Yeah, I get it. This is a somewhat negative post. I can't be positive all the time. Hopefully some of the pictures are nice. 😊

I will be returning to Thailand at the beginning of August, to move into my new condo. I am kind of looking forward to it. I think I can live with traveling between two countries, but I am pretty tired of just traveling for the sake of traveling.

I went to a jewelry store in Bangkok to buy a gift for my friend’s wife on his behalf. These were the cars in the parking lot. 😂Given that luxury cars like this have a 100% tax levied on them I would say he is doing well.

On a positive note … Was able to stop in Hong Kong on the way back from Thailand and have lunch with a good friend during a long layover. Great lunch and talk. Found the Feather & Bone restaurant by chance next door to the hotel. Best Chicken Parmigiana I’ve ever had.

This is a picture of the coffee they gave me on a Hong Kong Express flight between Hong Kong and Clark. What a cool design. It allows the coffee to move slowly through some kind of fine filter yet protects against jostling from turbulence.