XPost: alt.rec.hiking, misc.health.diabetes

On 1/23/2022 7:17 PM, Clutterfreak wrote:



65 degrees F, lots of sun. Perfect day for walking. Didn't see any of
the regulars. There are all sorts of tracks around here and they, just
like myself, choose a different one every now and then.

The sunny parts of track felt great and as soon as you'd step into shady
areas you'd feel a significant temperature difference. But cooler areas
were not that cold to create any stress in you.

Insects were all out again, including the long-legged spiders. I wonder
where they spent their nights. These nights for the past few weeks have
been very cold. Might have to read about them.

Also number of hawks have increased, about tripled. I think the newer
ones are Cooper hawks, others who've been around for a while are
Red-Tailed hawks. There are more birds out there. American Robins have
showed up (at last!). For some reason in this area you only see them in
coldest of days. The nights right now are pretty cold, subfreezing and
around freezing) but the days depend on the sun. If sun is out it
quickly adds 30 degrees F to the temperature without sun. As I said,
even walking from under the sun into a shady area gives you a
significant drop in temperature.

Cardinals have been around since last month. Geese and ducks are also
plenty now. Chickadees are still here. Large crows are of course always
around but the thing about them is that they almost never come close
enough to humans to be seen in their every features. Even hawks
sometimes sit closer than crows to you.

Could it be that crows were at one time in the long past advanced humans
who decided to genetically evolve themselves into crows? :) Knowing that nothing more than what a crow possesses makes any sense at all to life,
those advanced humans perhaps opted to that future for themselves, and
that's why they are so diligent in keeping their distances to the
confused harmful human.




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XPost: alt.rec.hiking, misc.health.diabetes

On 1/24/2022 11:00 AM, Clutterfreak wrote:



Notes on my walk yesterday: (Jan 24, 2022)

Cloudy all over with occasional light rain. Then at a little corner down
there close to horizon Sun managed to peek out. It created an amazing
rainbow on the opposite side of the sky. Lasted about 15 minutes. Then
Sun disappeared never to show up again for the rest of the day.

Saw several packs of american robin, cardinals (including many bright
red male ones), chickadees, and a pack of six herons sitting at their
usual spots on a tree adjacent to a pond. They always sit on the highest branches of the tree and there's always a pond very close to it. I
haven't seen them on the ground. Rarely on water and almost always on
top of such trees. And they seem to be in groups, not singles or duos
like ducks and geese.

It was too dark to see their colors but I think they were blue herons.

Winter clothing for walking in this area of USA can be a tricky matter. Temperature varies greatly in 24 hours all by itself. 30 degrees or more variation is common. Add appearance and disappearance of sun to it and
you get more sudden variations. Even as you walk from a sunny spot to a
shady stretch of the track temperature takes a quick deep drop! Like 10
degrees F just from a sun-bathed area into shady areas. This all makes
clothing a matter of concern when you are walking 2 hours or more, cause
if you are not careful you'll either end up carrying your jacket (and
sometimes blouse and even long-sleeve shirt, all three!) in your hands
most of the way, or you'll freeze your ass every time a breeze hits you.

Temperature itself doesn't hurt you in any way but the stress it creates
can build up during hours of walk and beats half of the purpose of doing
the walking in the first place.

Tiniest stresses can add up. Even walking on grassy areas creates enough
stress to make you twice as tired for the same distance compared to
walking on cement firm ground. Each step you take, because the body does
not know 100% where and when exactly the foot hits the ground, extra
muscles of the feet and body automatically begin to get alert and active
to maintain the posture for the coming unknown. A few steps in this way
doesn't make a difference, but as I've tested it hundreds of times, when
you walk a mile or so over the grass these effects add up considerably
and you emerge from the area quite tired!

So I think temperature has a similar effect by the stress it may be
creating. If it is too hot or too cold for comfort, stress begins to
build up.

I don't watch TV, and sometimes there's nobody on the track for no
obvious reason. This time I only saw one of the regulars, the Chink. No
one else was there the entire walk. Temperature wasn't that bad (it was
great indeed, average around 52 degrees) and it wasn't too wet at all.
Yet all these people you see on other days, cold or hot, had
disappeared. Some nonsense shit must've been on TV, that's my guess. A "football" game or such crap. A "state of the union" crook talk or
something.

Shoes are also a sensitive matter for long walks. When I was working in
a warehouse environment at least four hours of each 8 hour shift was
spent walking, climbing up and down, lifting this and that, stepping
into variously shaped areas and grounds, etc. It required a type of
shoes that I could hardly find readily available for purchase. Walking
is a much simpler form of using shoes. But even walking requires
adequate attention to the features in my shoes. As I mentioned it once
in these notes, presently I use two pairs of shoes for walking. A
special design of a cheap Walmart brand ("Star") that by chance matches
most of my requirements almost perfectly, and a certain type of
Sketchers. The walmart brand was I think about $20 or $24, Sketchers was
around $100.

For just walking, I need these two different shoes. Sketchers has a more
solid less flexible less shock-resistant feature to it, which works
great for long distance walking if you are in shape and full of energy
and have slept at least 8 hours the night before :) It actually makes
walking easier. But when tired, I have to use my walmart shoes which
feels like my feet are surrounded by shock-resistant material. It is as
if I'm walking on Styrofoam :) This makes walking more comfortable but
actually uses up more energy for the same distance walked compared to
the sketchers. So it is a give and take matter.

In the warehouse work environment, although this particular walmart
shoes worked better than any other shoes, it was not enough to meet
those more varied requirements. I often ended up starting from a type of
shoes that were very good in some respects but defective in other ways,
and modified them myself to fit all my work requirements, including
making cuts, removing small parts of the upper toe box (when width to
height ratios were too large), modifying the tongue (especially the
sloppy designs often seen in its edges inside the shoes), cutting down
the top parts of the counter or the collar (when design neglected the
abuse these edges could have for the skin around ankles and above), etc.
I had to do that because after experimenting with many cheap and
expensive and super expensive shoes I had realized that such shoes to
match my lifestyle didn't exist!

For casual use, sure, any piece of garbage, expensive or super expensive
or dirt cheap, will do for my use of it. But for hours and hours of use
every day there is none out there that would match perfectly with how I
use it. This was true in extensive warehouse work environment.

But for walking, as I said, it is a simpler activity and my own
modification (so far) has not been necessary.

This is of course true for someone my age (middle age and up). Young
fellows adjust to almost any abuse their shoes render to their feet.
Other than size or width almost nothing else matters to them. Look at
the stupid design that boots for young soldiers have had.

By what I see sold in walmart or online for high top shoes these days, I
have noticed that the stupid industry at last figured one thing out! For
high top shoes the counter area takes a dip in height, something quite necessary for comfortable walking in any areas of activity! I had
problems with the designs which kept the height of the collar and
counter equal in high top shoes as long back as I remember, even from my childhood.


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XPost: alt.rec.hiking, misc.health.diabetes

On 1/25/2022 1:00 PM, Clutterfreak wrote:






Notes on my walk today: (Jan 25, 2022)


Very different day compared to yesterday. Sky was full of sun. Not the
tiniest spot of cloud anywhere. Temperature got up to a bit over 60 F
(from 40s a couple of hours earlier!). With jeans and a t-shirt on, I
walked the most comfortable walk I had for the past week. It was wonderful.

I started a bit later than usual. It was my eating day so wanted to
avoid walking with a full stomach. I eat a meal once every two days, or
should I add "on average" cause sometimes by the end of eating day I
don't yet feel hungry enough and let it slide till morning of next day.
And on rare occasions I've eaten a second meal on an eating day cause
some friend had invited me to their house, etc. So the time of eating in
the day varies depending on how hungry I am. Today it fell a bit close
to walking time so I began walking later than usual.

On the way back around the end of walking, at the beginning of a certain
long bridge over one of the wide creeks, I saw an animal midway into the
bridge coming towards me. There wasn't enough light for me to identify
him from that distance, but as soon as he saw me he stopped and watched
me and right after realizing I am closing my distance to him he turned
back and not too rapidly walked back to the other end of the bridge and
from there made a 90 degree turn into the woods. I measured his height
against the railing patterns of the bridge and got shocked by it. My
initial guess was totally off, thinking it was a jack rabbit or
something, but the visual I made on the railing pattern indicated this
animal was larger than a mid-size dog! And when he turned into the woods
at the end of the bridge I briefly had a sideways glance of him and
noticed his gait. In all probability he was a jackal. But he could be a
bobcat as well if I had miscalculated and overestimated his height.

That time of the day, evening that is, the area belongs to wild animals
not humans. That's when rabbits come out, and that's when all those
animals and owls that among other things feed on rabbits, come out.

So just to make sure, I put my hand on my concealed carry when I reached
the end of the bridge and for a hundred or two yards beyond, and watched
all directions around me. I would not hurt such animals of course but I
_would_ fire towards ground to scare them off by the discharge sound, if necessary.

My concealed carry is not for concerns for animals anyway, although it
will work nicely to use its bang to scare off a large dog whose stupid
owner is not holding on leash. I'm more inclined to shoot such owners
(if I could get away with it) than shooting their dogs who're just being
dogs. There is a strict rule of law across this metroplex that people
cannot walk their dogs unleashed under any circumstances. Even when they
are walking multiple dogs, every one of them should be on leash.

Some months back I had started my walk even later in the day and on
coming back I hit total darkness. Then in the same creek area I talked
above, closer to home, I suddenly began hearing two dogs barking at me
from the wooded side. They were about 25 yards from me. Obviously they
were stray dogs that lived in that creek area and hunted there. They
must have found it very unusual that a human was rude enough to be there
in their territory at that time of the night :-) Then a minute or so
later I actually saw the two dogs, one was white and one black, both
large, complaining my presence there :) Again I had walked the next 10
minutes or so with my hand right over my concealed carry weapon.










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XPost: alt.rec.hiking, misc.health.diabetes

Notes on my walk on Dec 16, 2021:



It is basically another Summer day here. Pure Summer.

One week from the longest night of the year! One week from birth of
Mithra on winter solstice, birth of the original "Jesus".

We call that wonderful night "yaldA" in Persian. I think the word spoken
in English is Yule. But cro-magnons take Yule to be of Germanic people
origin and ascribe some German myth to it while Mithraism was no myth to Iranians, it was their religion for a long time; their observation of
the world and the universe. That's why it has ties to exact moments of solstices and equinoctial moments of each year. Iran's calendar to this
day is based on these observations. That's also why true astronomy began
and came from the Greater Iran region.

For so many years and centuries and millennia, this night must've been
the coldest harshest darkest and of course the longest night. Idea of
Mithra is tied to Sun. To light. And what those miserable people on such
nights each year desired most was a bit more of the Sun. So they placed
their God's birthday in the most logical spot in the course of a year,
right inside that strangely long night. Mithra would come into being at
the coldest and worst time to bring heat and Sun to those people.

That's the only reason you can still see rays of light emanating from
behind Jesus' head in all directions. The same rays you see on flags of
some countries located inside the Greater Iran.

It is only a week away from Yalda Night and here I'm walking in my
underwears inside my house sweating, because it just doesn't make sense
to turn the coolers on at this time of the year. I haven't even changed
their filters. I usually do that in May, not in fucking December! But a
quick walk around my house and I can hear neighbors' outside units all
running. Everybody around here has turned on their coolers!

Birds are confused. Bugs are confused. Stray cats are confused. The fish
in the lakes are confused! Is it mating time? Is it migrating time? Is
it egg laying time?...

"Why instead of holing up inside an oak nut I can still walk outside and
bask under the Sun?", insects and flies are telling themselves and each
other.

"Why I've stored so many pecans and oak nuts inside the trunks and it is
still so warm?", squirrels and raccoons are asking each other.

Even grasshoppers are confused. I can see that, in a way!

Those long-legged large spiders are all out walking on the cement
grounds! You know, the ones with an ellipsoidal body the size and color
of a red bean and a very long set of extremely thin legs holding the
body a good one inch or more above the ground as their walk gracefully
on solid ground heated up by Sun. They're all out just like in June. I
don't know their name. They're larger than the common house spiders.
Checking with what's available on internet the closest I find is Daddy
long-leg spider (Pholcus phalangioides) but the latter is more like a
very light brown color while what I see on the cement blocks as I walk
have burgundy colored bodies. Their legs are so thin the color of it is
hard to see. And their bodies are rounder than the much more elongated
daddy long-leg. It could be what they locally hunt that colors them
differently cause I see small bugs of stink bug type that are partly
colored in bright red and partly gray. If the spider is eating these
bugs it could be getting its burgundy color from them.

Trees are confused also!

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XPost: alt.rec.hiking, misc.health.diabetes

Notes on my walk today, Jan, 26, 2022:

Day started with a strange colored fog or something. It was as if we are
in the middle of a still sandstorm. That color! But as soon as sun got a
bit higher sky became totally cloudless and day became bright and sunny
and perfect for walking.

All six herons were still sitting on same tree, on the highest branches!
They must've spent the whole cold night there. On my way back only four
of them were there.

There are many tracks around here. At least 20 of them. I have started
to use the tracks instead of walking as straight as possible away from
home, mainly because I don't need that extra care of preventing myself
from cheating on the way back. I have become comfortable enough to
choose any track now and walk same track back without any shortcuts.
Reason is I'm more fit now and my body has gotten used to it.

Last year, this time, if I would take my working phone with my still
about once a week I'd get tempted to call uber for the rest of the way
back home. Now not even the thought of it crosses my mind. This doesn't
mean I should increase the walking hours, cause I think I'm getting a
healthy dose of it as it is.

So walking exclusively on tracks long enough is working fine for me. I
may also increase frequency of pilates at home (now it is once a day)
and decrease the period of walking a bit.






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XPost: alt.rec.hiking, misc.health.diabetes

On 1/26/2022 6:33 PM, Clutterfreak wrote:

Notes on my walk today, Jan, 26, 2022:

Day started with a strange colored fog or something. It was as if we are
in the middle of a still sandstorm. That color! But as soon as sun got a
bit higher sky became totally cloudless and day became bright and sunny
and perfect for walking.

All six herons were still sitting on same tree, on the highest branches!
They must've spent the whole cold night there. On my way back only four
of them were there.

There are many tracks around here. At least 20 of them. I have started
to use the tracks instead of walking as straight as possible away from
home, mainly because I don't need that extra care of preventing myself
from cheating on the way back. I have become comfortable enough to
choose any track now and walk same track back without any shortcuts.
Reason is I'm more fit now and my body has gotten used to it.

Last year, this time, if I would take my working phone with my still
about once a week I'd get tempted to call uber for the rest of the way
back home. Now not even the thought of it crosses my mind. This doesn't
mean I should increase the walking hours, cause I think I'm getting a
healthy dose of it as it is.

So walking exclusively on tracks long enough is working fine for me. I
may also increase frequency of pilates at home (now it is once a day)
and decrease the period of walking a bit.

Oops. The subject header must've read Jan 26, 2022, not Dec 16, 2021.

I'm trying to keep all these notes under same thread so possible readers
would not need to look for each of them separately. This, as you see, introduces newer fuck ups :)


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XPost: alt.rec.hiking, misc.health.diabetes

More notes on my walk on Dec 16, 2021:

Trees today were like saying "Should I shed the rest of my leaves or
should I hang on to them for now?...". Grass was saying, "Should I turn
all yellow or should I keep the middle parts that are still green from
bottom to top, as they are?". There's a stop to the usual processes by
nature to figure these matters up.

Crazy indeed. But there was a nice breeze and one wouldn't exactly feel
the Summer's kick. On the way back later in the evening when
temperatures were lower I saw one dung beetle trying to get down inside
a crack between the cement partitions forming the grounds to call it a
day. I think they live underneath these slabs. The smaller head and
thorax were in, but the much larger abdomen and his two rear feet were vertically standing outside struggling to get in. Wouldn't work at all.
But he was trying and trying! They don't give up easily. I got tired of
waiting and moved on.

No starlings today. They may have actually reversed course and gone back
north!

Let's see what tomorrow brings.


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XPost: alt.rec.hiking, misc.health.diabetes

Jan 27, 2022

Slightly colder today. In upper 40's F. Walk was great. And I saw two of
the regulars, the Chink and the sexy old Black woman. She had waved to
me a number of times before but this time she walked towards me and
asked me what my incentive was in walking almost every day. I said I had diabetes and as one of the legs in treatment of diabetes I needed to
also exercise every day. This was not the whole truth, but I didn't wish
to get into deeper areas with her just yet.

Saw none of the American robins and cardinals or the chickadees or any
bird of prey today. Not even the usual crows. Not sure why. Probably
because it wasn't snowy or rainy or cold enough :)

The six "herons" that I've been seeing lately are actually anhingas not
herons. I saw two of them in flight today and noticed the distinct white
band over their otherwise dark wings that shows only in flight. And
today there were 8 of them on top of that same tree by the pond, not 6.
I read a bit about them just now to make sure. Another proof of that
fact is that they keep their sharp bills at a 45 degree angle to
horizontal plane pointing upward while sitting, while herons usually
keep them about 15 degrees below horizontal plane, pointing slightly
downward.

I also saw another water bird in another pond today who swam underwater
for several seconds and showed up at another spot at the surface. She
kept doing it many times. I couldn't say she was also an anhinga or not.
I had seen such behavior decades back when I still watched TV, in some
nature program.

Right after getting back home as soon as I sat to relax I remembered I
had to go shopping. While driving saw some starling packs getting ready
to settle for the evening on some trees along streets to enjoy the
strange heavenly city lights as they fall asleep :)





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XPost: alt.rec.hiking, misc.health.diabetes

Dec 17, 2021:



It is still fucking Summer. But it's cloudy, the kind that may have
occasional short-period rain there somewhere in this area; thank god!..
Will have to take the umbrella with me. That means one hand gets pretty useless.

Hands and their movements are part of the process of walking of course.
They make it easier and more efficient. When one is tied down by a
jacket when it's too hot or a half bottle full of water when your pants' pockets are too tight and your shirt's got just one pocket with the
phone inside, then if you walk a long enough distance you will feel the
fucking difference that it makes. It can get so bothering that you'd
want to throw away your nice jacket just to free that hand. If you don't
think so you haven't walked far enough to reach that state of mind and
body :)

Jackets for me have been the source of that nuisance every time
temperature is low. Problem originates from the fact that at my age for
some reason it takes a full 35 minutes of walk for my body to get to the
steady state. It used to be just 15 minutes when I was young. Back then
I'd have to tolerate the cold no more than 15 minutes before what I had
on would match my surrounding and the heat the body produced. But 35
minutes of it is just too long and stressful, so I've had to wear a
jacket for the first 35 minutes, then carry the fucking thing in my hand
for hours after that.

Very rarely, if I'm lucky, ambient temperature also declines within half
hour and I won't have to take off my jacket. Or I happen to be stepping
into shady areas in a sunny day, which is noticeably cooler. But that's
no cause for comfort in general.

In Summers the situation with heat poses a similar problem. Sweating
kicks in faster than body's adjustment of the rate fuel burn. I don't
have to suffer from the heat for 35 minutes for the sweating to start.
And beyond that, if it is still too hot (which is almost always the
case) body cannot do anything about it either. Sweating goes a long way
but without other helping factors like winds or scarcity of moisture in
air even at the steady state it becomes somewhat stressful. But I still diligently do the walking because after mapping the shirt with salt so
heavily that you can feel it back at home when you fold the shirt (it
almost makes a cracking sound!), you know that all that salt is now
residing outside of your body, not inside.

And you'd feel it too. You feel healthier, more willing to do stuff,
more wanting to read incredibly informative books from those with equal
or better Analytical Compartments Of Brain (ACOB) than what you're
endowed with. You will actually feel that _youth_ in you that was once
the totality of what you were and now you only access on these specific
occasions.

But winter is different. There's not that much sweating, so walks have
to be longer to give you same results, and I do walk longer
automatically in winters. Even the regulars I've noticed do that. I spot
them at longer distances from where I'm vaguely assuming they start
their walks from. They start from different parts of the area of course.
I see them walking in both directions at very different locations. I
know that the Chink, for instance, begins his walk somewhere around
where I usually make a U turn and return. The Beaner begins somewhere
closer than that. Two of the incredibly tall Cro-Magnon Humans (CH) old
farts begin from an area not that far from my house.

I think these tall CH regulars (three of them) are past basketball
players whose heydays were many generations back. And I think it is the
spirit of such sports that have kept them doing these long walks every
day. Other CH I see along the tracks, the younger ones, are all idiots
who either are riding bicycles or are running, and then disappear for
weeks before doing it again. Idiots indeed. They do that as often and
for similar reasons as going to the movies.

There's a lake smack inside Dallas ("White Rock Lake") with tracks and
all sorts of other features around it for picnic and boating and
fishing, and playing your dogs and stuff that little kids would like,
etc. Even a spot for bikers, you know, Hell's Angels crap. For my entire university years, the better part of a decade, I walked once around it
on Saturdays. Most of the time alone, but occasionally some friend or
classmate accompanying me . No more than a couple of times with girls.
The track around the lake was almost exactly 10 miles and on various
weekends could take from 2.5 hours to 3.5 hours for me to walk depending
on what condition I was in. I saw a couple of such old fart CH guys
there as well in those years. Either every Saturday, or every day
perhaps, they were doing the walk around the lake; otherwise I wouldn't
be able to see them that often. And none of the two disappeared during
that span of almost 10 years. Without such walks, I bet my boots that
both would have died within a year or two at most after my first time
seeing them.

I didn't do those walks for exercise (I played plenty tennis and
swimming those days plus my pilates every day). I did it to condition
myself for another week of intense school activity, and it worked pretty
well for that purpose. On the rare occasions that something prevented me
from doing it, I could feel its absence the week following it. It was noticeable.

I remember one very rainy Sunday evening, totally pooped with school
work and tutoring responsibilities, I decided to go do that walk around
the lake that late in the day! I had missed it the Saturday before. I
drove there, opened my umbrella and started walking. Quickly the dark
came and I walked the rest of the way in darkness and rain except for occasional light posts that were placed every time you'd pass in front
of a mansion. In one of those relatively lighted spots I saw an old man
with his umbrella doing the same as I but coming from the opposite
direction. On coming closer and seeing me to believe it, he said loud
and in much surprise: "Oh, you must not be a Cowboys fan :-)) ..." Hahah
:) I think he probably was taking a stroll away from such madness about
"Super Bowl" that was being displayed on TV in that same evening,
inside one of the close-by mansions. And I think it was the one that
Cowboys had won.

When I returned home I checked that. It was the Super Bowl night and he
was so correct. I didn't even know it and had and have never been a fan.
It might have been the one Cowboys played and won too but I've forgotten
it now. But he couldn't believe his eyes until he came quite close.

Hehe :)

Got to go walking now :)

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XPost: alt.rec.hiking, misc.health.diabetes

Jan 28, 2022

Colder today, upper 40's. Very sunny though. The sunny parts of track
are closer to 65 F. Just stepping under a bridge where there's shade and usually breezy gets the temperature down to 40s again. This sun is very intense.

I saw 10 anhingas this time, same place. On coming back 8 of them were
sitting up there, one was in the water and one flying, exhibiting that
same white band that goes all across from one wing to the other.

I used to see three very tall and very old CH guys almost every day. But
in the last few weeks been seeing only one of them and not every day.
Today I started one hour earlier and saw the two tall ones that hadn't
seen since before Christmas. So they do it earlier in the day. Once it
becomes part of one's life, one does it every day. It becomes harder not
to do it than doing it.

Chink was there too but didn't see the Beaner and the old Black woman.
Last time I saw the Beaner was a few days back and this time he actually
waved at me! After almost 2 years. Job promotion? Was high on something?
Have no idea. The Chink hasn't waved and doesn't seem to want to. He
shows nervousness when passing by. Or it could be the Chinese way of
respect towards others, minding their own business. But I still give it
a chance that he probably feels others hate him for being Chinese for
Covid reasons.

In the weeks before Christmas many new faces showed up every day and
became very tentative candidates for becoming "the regulars", but my
hunch was correct in that it had something to do with Christmas fever
(they were all women) cause I have seen not one of them one time this
year. It must just have been hormones and nothing else.

I've also been seeing the homeless guy with the dog. He seems to appear
only during coldest times. Even in the middle of cold days when a few
days of warmth sets in he disappears. It might have to do with what he
probably hunts for food. Different fauna at two different places during different ambient temperatures. I've not seen him in summers. So by all probability he has a second spot elsewhere for warmer days.

I have noticed a certain brown colored caterpillar during the past cold
days on the track. Have no idea how they survive the cold and why they
are around when most leaves are rotting on the ground. Is that the same
colored dead leaves that they eat which gives them the color?

When passing close to the gun range a lot of high powered rounds are
being shot. The way they shoot such expensive rounds gives me the idea
that "we the people" are paying for them, not their own money, you know,
like those grocery carts that have a mountain of groceries of all kind
piled in them and when you look at the young woman pushing it you tell
yourself not a chance she is spending her own money. I get the same
feeling when I hear the way they shoot those rounds.












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XPost: alt.rec.hiking, misc.health.diabetes

Dec 18, 2021:


Was a great walking, perfect weather, 50 degrees F, some Sun some
clouds, a cool breeze. Just perfect. In Texas these combinations are
rare. In Iran we had a whole season of that each year.

It is not common that I don't end up carrying my jacket in my hands.
Today, as soon as I got my body to the steady state a breeze began which
made me quite comfortable to keep the jacket on.

It was also very dry! No idea where all that water from last night's
hard rain went. You could still see the telltale of what had happened
overnight if you looked carefully, but the path was all dry. Air must've
become suddenly extra dry to absorb all that and still stay dry.

As cold as it was, some insects were out to enjoy the warm cement slabs.
Much fewer of those gray-red bugs but as many large spiders as yesterday
were out. I suspect they are daddy long-leg spiders but their bodies are
more round than the usual ones you see in barn and in the house. Also
slightly more dark brown or reddish color rather than light brown. I
even saw a dung beetle but this one was different. His legs were red
(body is always black) instead of black, and body was a bit narrower.

Of the regulars I spotted the Beaner and two of the tall giant
Cro-Magnon humans (CH). I cannot distinguish between the latter at all
cause all three are same height and wear some form of hats and are
masked. The only distinction between them that I can think of is that
one of them must be even older because a few of the muscles involved in
walking aren't working right anymore, making his walking a tiny bit
strained and stick-like. Ok let me be straight, it looks as if a thick
giant dildo is up his ass as he is walking. Now you get the picture.

The other two walk normal, old as they are. I'm pretty sure they've been professionally in sports in their days, most probably basketball. I hope
I keep seeing all of them.

The Chink was missing which is odd. Very rarely that happens and even
then I may have somehow been distracted while he was in the view. But
today he was sure not there. Perhaps the store he possibly owns needed a helping hand now so close to Christmas. Black old woman was of course
missing too, being holed up somewhere saying "Lord, Hallelooya!"

Do people still observe Christmas? For what? Commemorating their
grandmas and grandpas that Fauci and Trump killed to save government
spending? Christmas is for good times in case you didn't notice.

Grocery stores this time of the year, if it was not for the new
situation, would've been fucking you up with constant Christmas songs
while you shopped. None of that at all now! There's no music. Even
Mexican grocery stores that always played Mexican songs are silent (the
two that I shop at anyway). You don't hear Christmas songs in Walmart.
It would piss some people off I'm sure.

As soon as weather matched the season here geese appeared :-) Hehe :) I
saw two flocks of the usual V-shaped arrangement on the sky one in the
morning while driving and one when walking in the afternoon.

Also during walking the part of the track that went through and along
creeks I saw many chickadees for the first time this season! One day
into normal winter weather and they appeared as if out of nowhere.
They're always in some small group and you notice them in the bushes
going from bush to bush, branch to branch, not in flight cause they're
too small and too close to house sparrow size and looks to be identified
in flight.

House sparrows are of course always noisy, but these chickadees are
silent. Occasionally making a quick tiny little sound. You see them as
soon as they sit on a branch of a bush and as soon as that they fly to
another branch a yard or so away. This way they move through all the
bushy areas looking for food. And this "food" must've been plenty today
for them! All these insects that are still alive and kicking.

They may be feeding on fruits as well. I'm sure there are yellow
hawthorn trees along these creeks (Mexican hawthorn) and right now is
right in the middle of season for them. All Mexican grocery stores that
I frequent carry them. These chickadees might be eating them as well.
Plus I've noticed that as the wild persimmon seeds are disappearing in
the droppings on the track, other seeds are fast showing in them. They
may all be hawthorn. And yes I still don't know exactly which animal's droppings they are.

Nobody was there today "outing". It was just me and those three other
regulars I mentioned. But I also saw this woman, a CH about 45 or at
most 50, rather tall, that I've been seeing everyday for the past two
weeks or so. It is too early to add her to the list of regulars but she
might be a candidate. I'll know for sure if I keep seeing her after the holidays. Women change chemistry when Christmas gets near and do and say
and feel and behave differently from what they become after holidays are
over. So we'll see about her later.

I'm certain that those who walk every day long distances (about 10 or
max 15 miles) do it mainly for therapy, not just exercise or
entertainment. I can't see any other reason for doing it everyday. And
it _is_ therapy big time!. Remember "Down and Out in Paris and London" (Orwell)? British government was doing that to the homeless in London as
the best that could be done for them to get them out of the trap they
had found themselves in. That was one heck of a bright idea and I have a
hunch they learned it from the Indian leg of Britain. Like many other
stuff they learned from India and they're so silent about them.

This "therapy" makes you a whole human again :-)



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XPost: alt.rec.hiking, misc.health.diabetes

Jan 29, 2022:

Morning began in lower 30s but intense sun and very clear air raised it
to mid 60s by the time I began walking. It was perfect with just jeans
and a t-shirt. accordingly, more people were on the track, most of them
just outing.

The cottonwood trees with no leaves to hide their amazing branches are
really beautiful and full of character. They are awesome. They resemble
the trees in the fairy tale movies with moving branches and a face. I
envy the squirrels and possible raccoons who live on them and wished I
could somehow build a "nest" up there :) This reminds me of the guy some
years back on the West Coast who had built a platform up on a high tree
hidden among leaves with elaborate ropes and pulleys to go up and down
fast as well as keeping everything hidden. He answered to a lot of
questions on some forum I don't remember which, and explained how he did
it for months. He went to work during regular hours all along.

Spotted 8 of the anhingas, same tree.

Bugs were out. Several yellow-light green butterflies as well. No daddy long-legs spiders though. I wonder where and how they winter. Much
smaller jumping spiders with thick short legs I've noticed tend to
winter inside the thick acorn caps from the bur oak trees which are
found a lot around here. These thick caps extend from half to over 95
percent of the acorn and at their edges have hair like extensions that sometimes cover the remainder of the visible acorn. There is often a
space between the inner sides of the cap and the acorn large enough for
these spiders to go there. And different insects make tiny holes on the
acorn and go inside and lay eggs there. When these acorns are collected
by squirrels and raccoons the spider goes along with them to the
relatively warmer areas inside some tree where they are stored. Sometime
later, those eggs hatch and flies come out and easily become the
spider's meal. I think this is one way these spiders winter. But I have
no idea how the much more delicate and larger daddy long-legs spiders
survive the winter.





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XPost: alt.rec.hiking, misc.health.diabetes

Jan 30, 2022:


The stupid weather app on my phone (1Weather) lies all the time about
the actual temperatures. It is often off by 20 degrees F. I've been in
rain, walking, and the app still shows 0% chance of rain. Then two hours
after rain stops it suddenly says 40% chance of rain.

Today I checked the weather using this same app before deciding on what
to wear. First it said 34 F. I wouldn't believe that cause it was so
sunny outside. Then like 5 minutes later it said 52 F. So I put my trust
in there one more time and dressed for a 52 degrees F weather and
stepped outside. It felt like I'd jump into an oven! I checked the
weather again, this time it said 74 degrees F ! The people behind this
app are simply crooks and at the same time the logo consistently says
"proudly serving 20 million people".

I uninstalled the damn thing and came back and changed my clothing.

When internet was being used most often by people who mattered in this
country such "services" wouldn't dare functioning like this one. But now
that the whole zoo has access to it anybody and anything is only making
money off of these third world nation + billionaires and trillionaires
country. From pfizer to 1Weather, they all know who they're providing
"service" for.

It was summer again. The only difference was that other than evergreens
and a few other trees that I don't know their names, all the trees were
bare, no leaves, waiting for Spring to arrive. Somehow they know it is
not right to germinate just yet no matter how hot it is!..

I began my walking today tired. Didn't sleep much last night and had
sinus issues during sleep. So breathing itself was hard. Affects
everything in the day hours. And it was not my eating day either (I eat
once every other day), so all that led to reducing the length of time I
walked.

The track was littered with little kids on their various electric
scooters (some of which I had not seen before). Free playground I guess.
The track today was a fucking playground :-(

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XPost: alt.rec.hiking, misc.health.diabetes

Dec 19, 2021:

I searched the internet to find dung beetles with red legs and couldn't
find any. I should've taken a picture of what I saw yesterday. I'm sure
he was the same type as other dung beetles cause like them this one was
also by a crack between adjacent cement slabs forming the ground in that stretch of walk. These crevices were originally fitted with a long
narrow piece of wood that soon rotted and created a quarter to half inch
wide crack, then slabs slowly moved around changing the width of the cracks.

Dung beetles live under the earth's surface on non-grassy dirt areas (as
far as I know), so with these slabs the only non-grassy spots in the
area, they choose these crevices especially when wind and rain quickly
deposit material inside them covering the "hole" in which they live in,
just like in ordinary places where they actually build covers for the
holes they live inside and make it sure that the residing area is not
directly under that cover but away from it, immune to water seepage.
Those cement slabs are ideal for keeping their living rooms safe (and
warm in sunny days).

Inside these "holes", they have a dung ball and lay their eggs there.

Bugs were loved in ancient times (I loved them too in my childhood) in
case you don't know. Some type of it was even considered sacred by the Egyptians, just like their sacred cats. There are even sacred winged bug artifacts found among possessions of the notables together with them
inside their tombs. Anything "winged" you find you should read it as
"tied to Mithraism". Yes, including your "angels"!.. You got it from
Mithraism. Winged lions, winged sphinx, winged deities, winged humans
(check coffins of ancient Egyptians), bas-reliefs and sculptures in
Persepolis, etc. In every bas-relief carved on Iranian mountain rocks
depicting Roman Emperors kneeling in front of the mounted Iranian king,
you see that winged figure right there up and in the middle of the scene!

Well, there are statues of winged beetles too :-) hehe :) They were
considered sacred in ancient times. Somebody, and probably thousands
more, loved them :) Nothing got their wings for no reason in those days.
It is a rank that's given very sparingly in Mithraism. You've got to
earn it.

Wow. I was talking about that dung beetle I saw. I don't know why that
one had red legs. Could it be the diet? Beetles diet heavily depends on
season. I read in a journal article sometime back that they had counted
about 5000 beetles in a single elephant dropping. What the latter eats
becomes what these beetles eat. There are so many reddish leaves and
fruits along the path I walk. Wild persimmons themselves are kind of
reddish and intense orange in color:

https://img-aws.ehowcdn.com/350x230p/photos.demandstudios.com/49/66/fotolia_2764237_XS.jpg?type=webp

A lot of much smaller fruits with a single very large spherical seed
inside (almost making up the whole fruit) are red in color. Some
hawthorns of course are fully red. So my guess is that this color
somehow ended up in this fellow's legs when he consumed more and more of
such dungs.

These bugs are amazing works of nature. So successful. They compete with
human and win in every respect imaginable. Proof of it is that these
bugs who feed on dungs often lay no more than one egg! They didn't need anything better than that to beat the odds. That's better than what
humans can do. So these bugs are evolution-wise more successful than human.

Time to get ready for another walk. Today was my eating day! Very
special day for me. I enjoyed the heck out of my soup. I'm sure human
has enjoyed such soups since he put fire into use. I had meat in it,
several vegetables, some legumes, a bit of potato, and pecans and
peanuts on the side. My stomach is having a ball, sweeties :) So fuck
you and your lifestyles.


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XPost: alt.rec.hiking, misc.health.diabetes

Jan 31, 2022:

Warm day but cooler than yesterday because of breeze. Very few people
out. Of the regulars only saw the Chink.

Counted 7 anhingas, two of them swimming. Their bodies almost stay
underneath the water surface. Their necks and head outside, the bill
always pointing at a slight angle upward from horizontal plane. Very
different from ducks or geese.

If only the individuals who come with their dogs would have enough sense
to keep their dogs on leash. Today a loose German Sheppard came directly towards me a distance away from his owner. I almost placed my hand on
the conceal carry, but the stupid owner called the dog out and placed
him on leash. Stupid people should not own pets. it won't be good for
the pets.

At a part of the track that get close to a street, on the grass by the
street there were placed flowers and a cross. Most probably someone died
there by car accident. Calling most of these events "accidents" is
really not correct. A more correct term for it is "A Stupid Fuck Up".

A pussie behind the wheels of a "GT" who knows just one thing in this
world that he could call "fun" and that's pressing the accelerator,
isn't having an "accident" when his stupidity causes him death! He is
having a "stupid fuck up."

So there mustlve been a stupid fuck up at that spot by the street within
the past 24 hours cause the flowers and stuff weren't there yesterday.

When I finished the course of walking I still had energy left in me. I
almost kept my pace constant from begin to end. I have recently been
reducing the amount of walking to add to the extent of pilates I do
everyday.

After getting rid of the ridiculously inaccurate weather app yesterday I installed a much better one on my phone called Ventusky. It is better
than any weather app i've used in the past 20 years. Other than being
accurate it has many more features as well. And certainly it is not a
fraud like 1Weather is.




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XPost: alt.rec.hiking, misc.health.diabetes

Dec 19, 2021 continued:



Was a grrrreat day to walk! 50 degrees F, very sunny, so sunny that had
to carry my jacket with my hand after 35 minutes of it. There were no
cool breeze this time to let me keep wearing it.

In long walks slightest inconvenience becomes major issues. I am
therefore certain that ancient man carried his stuff in a way that left
both his hands free to swing. There are signs of that also, like the way
bow and arrows and various bags and stuff are held in the back of the
person so he can walk without holding anything in his hands.

I had to take a piss so bad and there were all these people around
making it impossible. When I have soup for my meal I have to either wait
enough before starting the walk to get the extra liquid out of my
system, or like today I'll have to piss somewhere suitable along the
track. At last found a little bridge and walked underneath. Whatever bug
that will drink out of that piss tonight will get a nice dose of
riboflavin :) Today was my B complex day. I take it with my every other
meal, i.e. once every four days.

Now that I've been eating once every other day sometimes I buy too much
leafy vegetables by old habit. And once a Church announced in Craigslist
that their vegetable garden was free for everyone to come and take as
they wished; I got a ton of leafy vegetables from there. Then dealt with
the problem of what to do with them :)

The ones I can eat raw are no problem. They go fast with various
sandwiches. The rest that require cooking can only be consumed in large
amounts fast if sautéed. In the Persian dish "borAni" several pot-fulls
of such vegetables (spinach, collard greens, kale, leak, ...) get
reduced to an almost paste-like medium size bowl-full of something that
we add lots of garlic and fried onions to it and eat alongside plain
yogurt, even mixed sometimes. It's an Iranian dish and you need to have
had them while growing up to enjoy it otherwise you won't touch it (my
ex never ate that when I made them). THAT gets rid of every leafy
vegetable that you have too much of, and is a heck of a source for all
the minerals that your body needs. Note that they're not fried. Only a
very tiny percentage of them gets actually fried. The rest are just
broken down vegetables that have lost most of their water via escaping
steam.

As someone who tries to live a life of a human that his body was built
around, perhaps I should not eat yogurt. I do it for probiotic benefits. Maintaining livestock is much older than agriculture and went on for
much longer than we've had agricultural products. But still, it has not
been long enough to determine how our body works best. So having yogurt
is a violation of the correct form of life for human. There is a way to
get all the probiotic benefits from vegetables but I haven't researched
it enough. As soon as I find out how, yogurt will be history for me.

I don't buy yogurt readily made. Most Americans don't know how to make
plain yogurt and on top of that fuck it up with other added ingredients.
The so called "Greek" yogurt is closer to real yogurt, but I don't trust
that either. I buy whole milk and heat it up then wait for it to cool
and at the right temperature add a bit of my remaining yogurt in the
fridge. Cover it up and place it somewhere warm; next day I have a
gallon of yogurt, the real yogurt, if you can call the pasteurized milk
"real milk".

If it's too watery (read it "fraudulent milk" in the market) I extract
the excess water out with an extra thin cloth to correct texture. This
water is not to be thrown away. When I gather a good pot load of this
water, I boil it down to a light brown thick paste at the bottom of the
pot (very delicate procedure - 9 times out of 10 you fuck it up if
you're not careful). This paste is the wonderful tasting substance that Iranians have had for eons for adding a sour touch to their soups :-)
When I was a little kid, almost all my pocket money in elementary school
went for a little slab of this paste between classes :) Together with a
couple of other items, these were the snacks kids had in those years in
Iran.

I saw Snickers (I think they were called "Mars" bar) for sale in school
for the first time when I was in 10th grade. Those original wonderful
ones would get a bit hard to bite if it was cold. And they produced a
lot of energy for us. And they tasted just perfect. Last time I tried
Snickers (a couple of years ago) it was a soft gooey stupid substance
littered with grits and an oily gross after-taste, so sweet that it
burnt my mouth for half hour after that. It was disgusting compared to
those original ones sold in school in 10th grade.

A lot of good stuff to eat have totally disappeared in USA. Moreover,
people today don't seem to know or realize that. Newer generations never
saw anything other than what shit that's available today.

While walking I saw three large crows chasing after a bird of pray that
was slightly larger than them. The bird was doing her things but the
crows were bothering her noisily all the time. A crow chick must've been somewhere on the ground and crows were protecting her.

I saw a dung beetle this time with yellow feet! So now I'm sure it has
to do with what dungs they eat at which time of the year. Some hawthorns
and other smaller large-seeded fruits are yellow this time of the year.

Saw and have been seeing many centipedes also. They're shorter and
smaller than Iranian versions and it's funny that their names also
reflect that :) Centipede should mean "100 limbs" and the Iranian
version's name if I do a literal translation is "1000 limbs" :-) Hehe :)

And they are indeed about 10 times longer and thicker. Their movement is
also different. Here the centipede walks straight, the body is often
just a straight one inch long sequence of units that move straight
forward. The Iranian version never walks straight. Like snakes they
always move forward by going left and right in a wavy way.

Saw the Chink and none of the rest of the regulars. Christmas is too
near for the affected ones. So I must've missed the Chink yesterday
while distracted. So even Beaners are now occupied with Christmas. But
saw that CH (Cro-Magnon) woman again! I'll know more after Christmas and
even more after new year's eve. None of the three tall giants were
there. They may have traveled elsewhere to be with their kids or something.

Christmas has of course no effect on me whatsoever. My memories and
traditions are about the winter solstice night, the Yalda Night, not
Christmas. It is that long night that Iranians observe and stay awake
and eat and drink certain items and tell each other stories. Read poems.
Read interesting books about nature. I observe Yalda via skype with my
family as a simpler version of that tradition. It is much easier for me
of course because their time in Tehran is at least 8.5 hours ahead, so
by the time it is 4am for them and they end the ceremony, here is just
8pm or so. But I do stay a couple of hours longer than usual before
going to bed just to pay my respects to Mithra :-) I read something
interesting usually, with the cats on my lap keeping me company. I also
light a little beautiful oil lantern I have and let it shine all through
the night till morning. I've been doing that since I bought it from some
garage sale years back. It gives off a beautiful green light, making the occasion special, as if you're sitting inside the woods.

Knowing all my folks are asleep and all my cats are dreaming and quiet
is not a bad time to be awake reading amazing stuff about evolution and
man :-) Especially in the longest most quiet night of the year paying
respect to such an old and such an Iranian tradition.

That night is just three nights away now :)


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XPost: alt.rec.hiking, misc.health.diabetes

Feb 2, 2022:

I don't intend to go walking today. A winter storm is coming in the
afternoon for which I have to be prepared to prevent plumbing problems.
This one will only last about three days which isn't as bad as last
year's 7 days straight.

Last year's winter storm caused one of the pipes burst open without my
knowing. Water was cut city wise (state wise indeed). So was the power
for most people in Texas. And the icy 10 degree F weather came with
winds that made it actually like -30 degrees F. Everything froze. People
died in hundreds. Suddenly there was no propane gas to buy to help
heating. No prepared meal to buy so you'd eat without cooking. No
bottled water. You were suddenly in the pre-colonial "New World" without
the needed know-how that American Natives had for surviving. And this
lasted 7 days and 7 nights.

Those who didn't have a fireplace or something equivalent, like wood
burning stoves with vent pipes, had to cut the 2X4's of their own
housing structures to burn them right inside to at least prevent their
children from freezing to death. This was the state of the affairs in
Texas during last winter storm.

But this one is just 3 days and people now know better, especially the
crooks in the government.

Last year somehow my electricity wasn't cut. This region was lucky. But
there was no water. And when at last water was available you'd discover
the broken pipes and had to repair them first.

So I have to stay home and keep an eye on things for a few days. I think
I can resume walking by next Saturday.

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Dec 20, 2021:

A bit colder today. Perhaps I'll wear a winter item for a change. Got to
get my winter clothing out and ready. In Texas I use them for just a
month or so. In Iran at Tehran's latitude you'd need them for 5 months,
3 months of winter, one last month of Fall and the first month of spring.

In higher latitudes there, winters kill some people every year. In
Tehran the narrow alleys get filled all the way up to edges of people's two-story houses with snow when people shovel the snow off of their flat
roofs and into the alley. Then to go to work or school you've got to dig
a hole through it. As dangerous as it is, it is used like that for a few
days until the mighty sun appears. Then they collapse the tunnels and
begin walking over all that ice and snow.

So winter clothing is a good part of people's wardrobe there. Here in
Texas all you need is to get your fishing jacket out :-) Hahhaahh :)
Really nothing else is needed. Very rarely, winter in texas becomes real
for just a few days, but people just stay home and workplaces understand
that.

Generally there's been many many fewer birds this year around here. It
can't be just the weather. I think they've fucked things up with
pesticides somewhere. When birds of prey here become threats to _crow_
chicks and squirrels you know something has happened. Yesterday I saw
one single grackle in many weeks of walking 3 to 4 hours a day, with all
these insects and grasshoppers out in the open for them to feed on.
There's been some fuck up somewhere.

The only bluejay I hear is the one that lives around my house. And that
one is still around because I throw raw peanuts in shell outside on my
roof for her. They're not anywhere else. I think I heard one only once a
couple of weeks back. These birds are indigenous to Texas (among other
places) and should be around year round. Aren't there peanut farms
anymore? Are all of them swimming in pesticides? It is not like there's
an over-population of owls around here hunting the bluejays down to
zero; I haven't seem or heard the owls either. So these bluejays have no natural enemy. Well, where are they?

Choosing how far you walk is a delicate matter because if you overdo it
you get punished with it severely! It happened to me two times in my
life (that itself should tell you how careful I've been to avoid it).
Once when I was 21 getting my thoughts ready to come to USA, and once
very early after they locked us up when Covid hit the area. I had
overdone the walk away from home before turning back, and that was
enough to give me hell the last half hour of the walk home. Bottom of
the feet start to swell and get quite tender and red. When that happens
it's already too late, you can't rest it out! Walking on those feet
becomes impossible because you can't even limp cause both feet get
affected about the same time. And on that occasion I did not have my
working phone with me, otherwise I'd have dialed for Uber a hundred
times! I did have a non-working phone (to indeed prevent myself from
calling for taxi or Uber) which I carried only for 911 calls if a threat
of some sort forms.

I couldn't really call 911 for the condition I was in either, it was
just so ridiculous and I wanted to avoid those scenarios. So I did what
I had done the previous time when I was 21. I somehow walked myself home
(back then I walked to first bus station - I was walking between Tehran
and Karaj, a nearby city).

When you get home with such feet, you hit the bed cause you cannot walk
around one bit. In bed, no matter how long you wait the inflammation
won't go away, so you just piss inside a bottle or empty can right there
till sleep time arrives and you wake up next morning, try the ground to
see if you can stand on it, but no! Bottom of your feet are still as
tender and painful as yesterday; can't stand on them, let alone walk. So
you crawl like a toddler on your knees and palms of your hands, yes
actually begin to move like that around the house! You get yourself in
that manner to restroom, do your thing and crawl back to bed. Then you
will have two fucking more days of that and nothing else!

On third day you will notice the healing has begun and is fast underway.
You are now scared shitless and do not want to fuck up, so you take it
real easy that day, spending most of it in bed and only test your feet a
few times during it to see in what stage of recovery you are in.

On 4th day you wake up and find out you can stand on your feet without
any pain. Inflammation and tenderness is gone, so you carefully start
walking to different spots in your house beginning a normal day, but
still very very carefully!

It is a scary thing to experience. It is every bit a trap. Once you are
in, there is no way out of it but spending days at home doing nothing.

That happened to me when I was not careful where on my walk away from
home I turn and reverse course. So I'm extra careful about that now. I'm
not young anymore. My body is different on different days depending on
many factors. Sometimes I exert myself on something already in the
morning before my mid-day walk begins. Sometimes it is my eating day and sometimes it is not my eating day. Sometimes I have been walking much
slower than usual and sometimes a bit faster than usual. Sometime I take
a path that has got more grassy area to walk on than other paths.
Sometimes I have my Sketchers walking shoes on sometimes just a
comfortable Walmart shoes. All these come into play on deciding where to
turn back. I don't know about others, but for me there is a limit on
what bottom of my feet can take in a day, and that limit is not to get
too close to, let alone reached and passed.

Speaking of shoes, I don't know if I mentioned it already or not, the
shoes I wear for walking these weeks and months have been two different
pairs, one a certain design of a Walmart brand that a few years back I discovered worked great for long walking and working hours at work. Unfortunately I was not the only one who discovered that cause all these
other nonsense shoes are always available in Walmart except that
particular brand which has become very rare, and if I find one it is
either too small or too large. But the brand and that design is still
being carried by Walmart, so I check that aisle every time I'm in
Walmart. I have, throughout 5 years, worn out several pairs of them but presently have two pairs of them that are still in good enough condition
to wear. That's one of the two pairs that I do my walking with.

The other pair is a certain design of Sketchers. Sketchers, as you may
know, makes specialty shoes (to some extent - I think they're still
wildly experimenting). I have tried several different designs of them,
almost none worked well for long hours of work in a warehouse. All that
money (more than $1000) were essentially wasted. But walking is a much
more limited form of activity than working in a warehouse, therefore one particular design of Sketchers has come handy for that purpose alone. I
wear that for walking every time I feel I can handle a less
shock-resistant shoe.

When I am at the top of my health and energy, I don't go for
shock-resistant options cause they actually make you spend more energy
in getting as far as you comfortably can. The Sketchers has reduced shock-resistance. But on tired days (for various reasons) I will need my Walmart shoes which has a good amount of shock-resistance built into it.

Human either walked barefoot or used animal leather tied to ankles with
ropes all the way till just a few centuries ago. I don't wish to walk
barefoot of course (I'm not as bold as the dude in Tehran Univ physics
dept who came to school barefooted all the fucking 4 years just to show
the middle finger to everybody around him!). But I'd like to try how the original form of shoes with loose leather tied to angles with ropes
would work :-) Problem is I don't know where to find them.

Today? Today I'm wearing my Sketchers :)


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XPost: alt.rec.hiking, misc.health.diabetes

On 2/2/2022 10:38 AM, Clutterfreak wrote:

Feb 2, 2022:

I don't intend to go walking today. A winter storm is coming in the
afternoon for which I have to be prepared to prevent plumbing problems.
This one will only last about three days which isn't as bad as last
year's 7 days straight.

Last year's winter storm caused one of the pipes burst open without my knowing. Water was cut city wise (state wise indeed). So was the power
for most people in Texas. And the icy 10 degree F weather came with
winds that made it actually like -30 degrees F. Everything froze. People
died in hundreds. Suddenly there was no propane gas to buy to help
heating. No prepared meal to buy so you'd eat without cooking. No
bottled water. You were suddenly in the pre-colonial "New World" without
the needed know-how that American Natives had for surviving. And this
lasted 7 days and 7 nights.

Those who didn't have a fireplace or something equivalent, like wood
burning stoves with vent pipes, had to cut the 2X4's of their own
housing structures to burn them right inside to at least prevent their children from freezing to death. This was the state of the affairs in
Texas during last winter storm.

But this one is just 3 days and people now know better, especially the
crooks in the government.

Last year somehow my electricity wasn't cut. This region was lucky. But
there was no water. And when at last water was available you'd discover
the broken pipes and had to repair them first.

So I have to stay home and keep an eye on things for a few days. I think
I can resume walking by next Saturday.

Sorry, again I messed up the date in Subject header. It should read Feb
2, 2022.

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XPost: alt.rec.hiking, misc.health.diabetes

Dec 20, 2021:

Saw the Chink, the old Black woman, and the giant tall with dildo up his
ass. Now I'm doubtful if they walked the past few days too and I missed spotting them. Sometimes my mind takes a flight and comes back 15 or 10
or 5 minutes after. During such times I may even pass by one of the
regulars without noticing them.

My ex used to catch me in those moments and it would piss her off cause
she didn't understand it. She'd take it as an instance of disregard for
her by me. She didn't know that sometimes I was thinking about something
that required all my attention. To her, it was as if a man thinks only
when he goes to his desk and sits and opens a physics book or something,
or goes to work and sit there and only then begins thinking. Hehe :)
Cro-Magnon people have some stuff to learn, don't they. They just don't understand that thinking is a 24 hour thing for an Modern Human.

I'm no fucking Feynman. But Feynman also had the exact same problem with
his 2nd wife. She was some educated and smart Cro-Magnon and wouldn't understand that Feynman sometimes needed to think about something. They actually divorced as a result of that. If I remember it right she had
exclaimed to the judge "He calculates in the middle of the night in bed!.."

Cro-Magnons (CH) don't understand the Modern Human (MH) and at the same
time are annoyingly close enough to MH to get irritated by them and then
get dumped by them!

That's what happened to Feynman's 2nd marriage and that's mainly what
happened to my own marriage. Too bad, I cannot be reduced to a CH no
matter how much "love" is involved.

Speaking of CH, I saw the CH woman again today. Just a couple of weeks
back I had more than the usual share of pinto beans in my eating day
before going walking. It happened to be a busy day, many people out
walking for various reasons. At one point I realized gas had gathered in
my intestines and was fixing to insist on getting out into mother
nature. I looked around me, both oncoming people and people behind me
walking the same direction were too close to let the it out. I waited
and waited and storm gathered more and more, yet to no avail. There were
just these people around me like fucking flies. It was a warm day and a
lot of people love warm days.

At last the occasion came, nobody around but one 50 yards in front of me walking towards me. So I got ready to let it out as soon as he passes me
and get far enough. Right before action, I made one last look backward
and got shocked to see that same CH woman only 15 yards behind me! ..
With some application of tact and fast thinking I managed to keep the
gas inside. Then I realized I was kind of trapped now. If I'd slow down
till she passes by me she would get ideas I may have bad intentions
cause I had just looked back and seen her. If I sped up to increase my
distance I could get into trouble at the last half hour of the walk and
pay heavily for it. So I said to myself "Fuck!.."

Then out of having no other choice I decided to speed up very gradually
to kind of fool my body into it. It actually worked! Soon I was walking
much faster without feeling it. Looked back and she was a good 200 yards
away, then let the gas out like no gas had gotten out before :-)

Very rarely I've had this type of problems. Mainly because I eat only
once every other day.

There is a funny thing about these regulars that I haven't said yet.
They walk as if they've imposed some spirit of exercise or sports on themselves, and it shows it to any onlookers. I walk just like I walk
anywhere else, like when I'm walking in Walmart or in the parking lot of Walmart or from school's parking area to the library when I need to
check something out. These regulars do not walk like that at all. I
cannot imagine, for instance, the Chink walking in that manner from the school's same parking lot towards the library. It would be so
ridiculous, exactly as if he has some mental issues or something. And
this is true about all of these regulars. The Beaner walks as if with
every step forward he is crushing a walnut on the ground in front of
him. Chink walks with his hands' motion exaggerated as if he is
semi-swimming in air, and throws himself forward with every step. The
Sexy old Black woman walks in small steps but very fast as if she's
wearing one of those tight skirts that come down to ankle areas. The
tall giants each walk with their own idiosyncrasies; one of them as I
said before walks just as if a dildo is up his ass.

The Chink's or the Beaner's walk are so different that I can imitate
them. I imitated the Chink's way of walking today for like one minute
and found out it has its merits but still felt ridiculous to me. Normal
walking itself is all I need if it is long enough.

Today was cool, cloudy but very bright, and a lot of Sun's energy still
smashed against the cement slabs cause some spiders and bugs were out,
and in shades it was much cooler. Right there is the proof that clouds
are no barrier for ultraviolet radiation from Sun. Even if it's cloudy,
if you are a transparent skinned CH you must cover your exposed areas to prevent UV radiation giving you cancer.

There's also a homeless man with a dog who lives under one of the
bridges over one of the creeks. Last winter I kept seeing him walking
his dog almost every day, but this winter I have seen him only a few
times. I didn't see him during summer. So I don't know what the deal is
with him. A month ago or so I saw him for the first time after last
Winter and his dog very noticeably recognized me :-))) Lovely thing. He
looked at me and I could see it in his eyes and face that he was telling
me "Long time no see!..."

I think the man hunts rabbits at nights. I have found empty 380 caliber
used cartridges on the track and have picked them up so I could see if
new ones appear, and they did! I have also seen, just once, blood on the
track enough to indicate a rabbit was shot there. Can't be a squirrel
cause they're out during the day and people cannot shoot at that time,
it is against the law. But Rabbits come out after dark and with
arrangements (placing food under some light post, etc) one could sit and
wait for them to come without police or anybody around to disturb
things. I mean if you are a homeless and have endless time on your hand
you could do that and get yourself and your dog an occasional different
meal.

The only gun shots I've heard there have been the ones on one of my
routes that passes by a shooting range, and these shots are always high
power rifle shots. There must either be a club there for hunters or it
could be a place for law enforcement practice. I can check that out but
right now I got better things to do. By the way ammo these days are
super expensive, even the most common one, 9mm, these days are about $50
a box of 50. A dollar each round of 9mm? It must be some fucked up
times. And those rife rounds are even much more expensive.

There is a fear among people that a civil armed conflict of some sort
might come up and gun businesses obviously support and promote that, so
people run and buy ammo at any price as soon as they are shipped to
stores. Walmart's ammo shelves have been empty for two years now.

I sold some of my 9mm ammo at a nice prices, but not a dollar a piece.
So I'm not selling what I have anymore. Hell I might need them myself if
some shit hits the fan around here. These are potentially dangerous
times mainly because a lot of people have lost business and lives for
almost no reason other than politicians' tricks, so they're on edge.

I also saw the first flock of female cardinals. They move through the
bushy areas just like chickadees, and they are often all female, with a
very rare bright red male among them. That tells me they are different
from pigeons. Pigeons and ducks and many other birds are monogamous.
Male stays with same female and female stays with same male both helping
to hatch the eggs and later feeding the chicks. They are basically
partners for life. But cardinals, it looks like they are polygamous. One
male getting a whole bunch of females pregnant with eggs.

I could of course read about it. Perhaps I leave that for the long Yalda
Night tomorrow night :-)


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