Todd Grooms

Shingles update: a week later and I’m still quite itchy. The worst of it seems to be over. I hope the road to recovery is quick.

If you need me, I’ll be taking a nice apple cinnamon oatmeal bath. 👌🏻

The symptoms started Monday. They were hard to quantify, but the gist was a tingling, burning sensation in the skin on my left shoulder, up my trapezius muscle, toward my neck. It wasn’t constant and it wasn’t even that bad. Mostly just an uncomfortable sensation.

I ignored my symptoms until Thursday morning. On Thursday morning, I noticed a small rash starting to appear across my left shoulder, from back to front, with a smattering of red on my left pectoral muscle. Ashley urged me to see a doctor and I relented.

Fortunately, I was able to see a physician that afternoon. He asked me two questions before informing me I had Shingles. I quick and easy diagnosis. I had classified Shingles as an ailment for the elderly. It almost seems appropriate for me since Ashley regularly jests that I am an old man trapped in a younger man’s body.

The good news: there were treatments to help with the symptoms. The bad news: you just have to let it run its course.

I worked Thursday without much incident. By Friday afternoon, the rash’s progress had accelerated. It had spread a bit more and had started to blister. This was expected, but it’s still uncomfortable. The pain has increased a bit and it has become increasingly more itchy.

As of Saturday, it seems like it’s past the blistering phase. Now it’s just very itchy and the burning pain still comes and goes in waves. Only a few more days to go… or possible a few weeks. Apparently the timeline for recovering from Shingles varies wildly from case to case and person to person. I’m hoping for a more mild case, especially since I started treatment early on.

🔗 U.M.B.C. Makes History With Upset of No. 1 Virginia

Since 1985, No. 1 seeds had advanced at least to the second round 135 consecutive times.

We were putting Max down for bed whenever I received the alert. I always figured that eventually this would happen. Despite how impossible it always felt, it always seemed to me that this would have to happen. Now that it has happened, I am truly stunned. This is the first year I have not filled out a bracket since seventh grade. However, every year that I have filled out a bracket always started the same: I immediately penciled in the one seeds into the second round. It was a given. Sure, you’d watch the games and you would root for the unlikeliest of upsets, but you always knew those picks were safe. I have seen a two seed get upset. Your threes and fours are uncommon as well, but there have been a few of those. Most followers will insist that there is always a twelve over a five in every tournament. But a sixteen over a one? Sure

🔗 Nashville Mayor Megan Barry resigns from office as part of guilty plea to felony theft charge

Nashville Mayor Megan Barry resigned on Tuesday amid a sex scandal involving her former head of security, a stunning fall from power for a leader who was once among Tennessee’s brightest political stars.

Before we left Nashville, Ashley and I both voted for Megan Barry twice (general election and the runoff). To say that I am disappointed is an understatement. During the mayoral election of 2015, I felt Barry was an honest and sincere person. The misappropriation of funds and the violation of the people’s trust in her is what hurts the most. At the time of her election, I felt that her being elected meant a strong progressive policy for Nashville. I only hope that the newly sworn in mayor and the soon to be elected mayor will continue that trend.

Ashley and I have been slowly going through our things, attempting to purge things we no longer need or just don’t want. It’s tough. What can be sold? What should be donated? What can be recycled? What should be thrown out? Much of our furniture has been accumulated since our marriage. Some pieces of furniture predate our first apartment together. A few pieces of furniture are cheap relics of college. Some of our stuff was slightly damaged during our move. Some of it has outlived its usefulness.

One of the items that I came across were a few pairs of eclipse sunglasses. I considered throwing them away, but felt terribly guilty about discarding something that was still useful. Instead, I found a NASA article that gave me a few options. I decided to ship them to the Astronomers without Borders collection. It cause me the postage to ship them, but I feel a bit better about not wasting something that could still be used by someone.

It has always been difficult for me to part with my belongings. I feel guilt for giving away things that may have been a gift to me. However, I want to simplify our lives. We still have boxes of things that have not been unpacked since our move to California. I think it’s time that those things, if possible, find new homes. I may have items that other people would be thankful to have. So I’ll donate things that still have life in them, discard or recycle those that have been too well loved.

While at work the other day, I needed to make a quick trip to the post office. I was without a car (I usually take the bus to work) and the closest post office was about a 30-40 minute walk from my office. Luckily, we have a bike program at work and one of the bikes was available. I looked at the route and realized that there were bike lanes the entire route. I grabbed a helmet and decided to give it a try.

It had been years since I had last ridden a bike. I had never ridden a bike in bike lanes along busy roads. At first, I was worried about looking like a dork with the helmet. However, I threw it on because I, as an adult, understand the necessity of safety gear (I’m very lucky that my lack of safety gear as a youth did not result in any long term injuries). The next hurdle for me to overcome was the apprehensiveness I felt riding a bike along busy streets. The first time a car drives past you doing at least 35 mph is an eerie feeling. I was able to adapt to this situation and this feeling. After a few minutes, I found something unexpected: I was enjoying myself. I could feel the wind and a smile slowly crossing my face. It was a joy to just be riding, to be doing something I haven’t done in years, something that harkens back to childhood. I would ride my bike all over my hometown as a kid, literally from one side of town to the other, and I could feel traces of that freedom, of that exhilaration.

I’m now considering the purchase of a used bike, probably off of craigslist, just something to get me back on the road, to get me into it.

Ashley and I have been planning Max’s first trip to Disney World. And by “Ashley and I have been planning”, I really mean “Ashley has been planning”. She has taken the initiative with this and it will be her first trip to Disney World as well. She accuses me of not being excited for our upcoming trip and she points to my lack of outward excitement and my lack of assistance with the planning. She is wrong; I am very excited for this trip.

I am looking forward to seeing his reaction when we tell him about our trip. I cannot wait to see his face light up as he explores the parks, to feel his excitement as we ride the rides together, and to see the inevitable smiles as we meet different characters. I have been to Disney World before, but I was so young I do not recall any of the trip, so I can only go by stories passed down to me from family about whether or not I had fun. Max is nearly four and we both feel as though he is old enough for this to be a memory for him as he ages. I only hope that it will be a positive one.

I would love to pretend I am a rare breed (we all like to believe we are unique). However, I am not really all that special. I can be fairly pessimistic during vacations (I would be very comfortable with Eeyore). I do not know if Max picks up on my pessimism yet, but I am fearful that he will start picking up on it soon. I am trying to improve, but I am scared that my sometimes sour moods will ruin our Disney trip. Maybe that is why I am not as outwardly excited as Ashley would like; I am distracted by concern and worry. If the happiest place on earth cannot break me from sour moods, what can?

I think someone forgot to tell Nick Foles that he wasn’t supposed to be as good as Carson Wentz.

Me, at the end of my summary to Max on why we have Martin Luther King Jr day off from work and school: “Martin Luther King Jr wanted to ensure that everyone is treated equally and we take this day to remember what he did and what is still left to do. We should always treat people fair and with respect. Do you think you can treat all of your friends with kindness and respect?”

Max: “Yeah and I like to stomp my feet.”

Good talk.

Last week, Ashley found the back of the Land Rover had been egged. My guess is that it was probably perpetrated by some bored high school students. However, Ashley thinks it may have been in response to the Maple Leafs flag that hangs next to our garage. Either way, as far as I can tell we have done nothing to warrant this. I finished cleaning off the remnants today.

Max received his very own pair of ice skates for Christmas. He had been taking lessons, a parent and tot class where I was able to skate alongside him, throughout the autumn. He seemed overjoyed when he opened them. Luckily, there was a small ice rink constructed on the Santa Cruz Boardwalk for the season and this allowed us to take them for a spin on Christmas day. This was also the first time that Ashley was able to skate with us. We were able to skate three-aside, holding hands: Max in the middle, a chain of arms and hands. As we were skating around the tiny sheet of ice, I felt the warmth of Max’s hand in mine. I could see the sun setting on the beach. I want to remember this moment for the rest of my life.

At the suggestion of my wife, I started reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I’m about a third of my way through it and it’s a very enjoyable read.

🔗 Fleur-de-lis

While attending school in Louisville, I observed many fleurs-dis-lis (⚜️) throughout the city. I had seen the symbol before (most notably used by the New Orleans Saints), but I had no idea what it meant. As part of my bus commute research series, I decided to take a look and see

a) what the fleur-de-lis symbolizes
b) why it is associated with Louisville

The fleur-de-lis is a stylized lily and is commonly used as a decorative symbol. Apparently, many saints are often depicted with a lily, which is why I often associate the fleur-de-lis with a religious connotation. It seems tied to French history and is often associated with the French monarchy, but it is often seen in other coats of arms across Europe.

Why is the fleur-de-lis associated with Louisville?

Basically, places that saw strong French settlement during European settlement adopted this symbol. Louisville was one of these areas (many settlements along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers were strong French settlements, which is why the fleur-de-lis is popular throughout these areas). It also seems likely that the fleur-de-lis is chosen to pay homage to French contributions during the Revolutionary War. This symbol is so much a apart of Louisville’s identity that it is included in the Louisville Metro Seal and the Flag.

🎧 I can feel this narcolepsy slide…

🔗 Extract from Plato’s Republic: On That Which is Correct Politically

Smart and funny.

I think a future hobby I might get into will be posting random pictures of Macho Man Randy Savage on a new tumblr site.

For silly reasons, I moved this site to be a Github Pages site. At first, I thought I would enjoy the git commit/push dance with writing posts. The novelty of this has worn off over time. I’m now in the process of writing a simple Swift CLI to post to my site. This CLI takes in a file, creates the file in my repo, then uploads the data associated with that file. It’s an interesting way of using up my idle time to reinvent the wheel.

🔗 Horsepower

I spend approximately 1.5 hours on a bus most workdays. I recently had an idea of finding an subject of interest and reading about it while on the bus. Topics can vary and I may include any number of links for the subject.

The first subject that I thought of was Horsepower. Specifically, I was curious about the origin of the unit of measurement. For brevity, Wikipedia did not disappoint.

[James] Watt defined and calculated the horsepower as 32,572 ft·lbf/min, which was rounded to an even 33,000 ft·lbf/min.

Source

Of course there is a standard for calculating Horsepower for automobile engines as dictated by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), but I also find it interesting that there are other variations of the Horsepower unit in use. I figured there would be an Imperial and Metric version, but I had no idea there was a “Boiler Horsepower” or a “Tax Horsepower”.

The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the young know everything.

— Oscar Wilde

And you may ask yourself, Well… How did I get here?

via @davewiner. I love this image.

🔗 The Loyal Engineers Steering NASA’s Voyager Probes Across the Universe

‘‘I would not leave my wife to go with Angelina Jolie, as exciting as that sounds,’’ he told me. ‘‘And I would not leave Voyager to go to the new Mars missions. I will not leave Voyager until it ceases to exist. Or until I cease to exist.’’

Testing a microblog post workflow. 🚀

My son’s daycare has an Anakin Skywalker figurine missing his right hand. ✋🏻