Sunday, December 31, 2023

Happy New Year 2024!

New Year's Eve is upon us, and I just want to wish all of you a happy New Year.  By this time of the year, pretty much every year, I'm sick of the "year in review" shows on TV, so I'll just post a little about my year in review.  It's customary to start the New Year with a reference to the Roman god Janus - his name is where the month gets its name - who could look both backward and forward at the same time, so we can do the same thing.

My biggest change of the year was surgery I had in January for my hiatal hernia, and the implant of the LINX device that got me completely off the heartburn medications I'd been taking for nearly two decades of acid reflux.  My surgery was January 26th and at my second post-op followup in early March I was told I can just stop taking the Prilosec I had been taking, so I did.  I can't tell you how surprised I was to not need heartburn medication that night.  I think in the nine months since then, I took Tums twice.  I haven't gone that long without Tums in, well, so long I can't remember not having some on me all the time. 

I'm still bothered by my umbilical (belly button area) hernia.  That keeps me from doing pretty much anything to strengthen my core muscles, which inevitably leads to weakness that makes the hernia hurt.  Homey recognizes a positive feedback loop when he sees one, but there appears to be some magic incantation or diagnosis in this case that makes it get offered as option more acceptable to the insurance companies, the real power in that system.  Hey, gotta have a theme song, right? 

This is gonna sound weird but, thankfully, the negatives of the year were mostly things breaking and either being fixed, in the case of the Exploder, or replaced in the case of air conditioner that died in the workshop.  Family is all well.  Our cat Mojo, who had scared us last year, has had a good year.  We give him an oral steroid pill every night and after a few attempts to cut his dosage to every other day, we've settled on one a day and his blood counts stay normal.  He's better at taking pills than any cat I've ever had.  Since we adopted him in 2010 we're not exactly sure of his age but he's at least 16, could be 17, and could even be pushing 18. 

As for looking toward the future, my crystal ball is cloudy.  I'm a real money guy and the gyrations of the central bankers have had me expecting economic collapse Real Soon Now since about '06 - certainly before the '08 collapse.  I had seen talk of the subprime crisis developing in '06, before it started and led to the '08 collapse.  I've written so many times about economic collapse that haven't come true that I've stopped believing in myself - or my ability to predict it.  I've also written about the collapse of technological civilization, the "new dark ages" so many times that the same conclusion happened.  When we see the DIE mind virus pushing into STEM colleges and programs, when competence, hard work, and attention to detail are derided as "white supremacy" or whatever, will you ever feel safe crossing a bridge or riding a commercial jet?  So few people actually know how to design the critical parts in the essential electronics we take for granted, if the fabrication plants were suddenly gone - intentionally or by some natural disaster - could they be recreated?

I think it's going to happen, I just don't know when.  

On the stuff we watch the closest here: space exploration, I expect this is the year that Starship reaches orbit, quite possibly on the third launch.  This fall, I read Liftoff, Eric Berger's biography of the early days of SpaceX; the first successful launch of the Falcon 1, the introduction of the Falcon 9 and the early days of the company.  (I recommend it to anyone interested)  The Falcon 1 took four launches before they got to orbit successfully, but they weren't fighting the FWS, the FAA, the petty lawsuits, and the totality of the Federal behemoth.  Can something as ambitious as Starship reach orbit in fewer flights than the vastly simpler Falcon 1?  On the other hand, they do know vastly more than they did about making orbital spacecraft back then, but something as ambitious as Starship has never flown.  

I'm fairly confident Vulcan Centaur will fly - maybe even both Certification missions.  I'm rather less confident that Boeing's Starliner will fly, and about the same level of confidence New Glenn will fly.

Let me leave it there, along with a wish for a very Happy New Year to everyone who stops to read here.  May it be healthy and fun for all.



17 comments:

  1. That umbilical hernia, it's not going to get better. It will continue to rob you of core strength and lifting ability. Making it even harder to sit up, bend over, work on your electronics and your antenna.

    Seriously, they start out small and then start ripping more and more.

    Get it fixed. And get it fixed properly. Soonest.

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  2. Beans is right!

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    1. Have to agree with Beans and FF - it won't get any better with neglect. Some things just deteriorate faster than the body can fix - if it can fix itself. This is one of those.

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  3. I suspect the LINX device had something to do with the space program so I'm happy it's working so well with you.

    “There is a great deal of ruin in a nation.”
    ― Adam Smith

    I understand he was referring to how long bad behavior (economically, endless warfare, social decay) took to destroy a Nation. So, I fully understand your 08 thoughts. BUT, as Papa Hemmingway so well put it:

    “How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked.

    “Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.”

    “What brought it on?”

    “Friends,” said Mike. “I had a lot of friends. False friends. Then I had creditors, too. Probably had more creditors than anybody in England.” (Sub America here)

    Better to be prepared a year ahead than a month after Weimar Hyperinflation blasts past the Media Propaganda.

    But don't forget to try the pie and snuggle your beloved.

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  4. I'd love to see a more in-depth look at Starship from you. Does it lead to me booking a hotel in space anytime soon for a reasonable price? Are there any industrial plans or anything, other than Mars?
    Pournelle once mentioned foamed steel I-beams. I've never forgotten that, for some reason.
    It seems to me that Mars colonists are going to be peasants in a Solar economy. There's nothing there you can't get better faster cheaper off-planet.

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    1. Getting off planet reliably and safely is the key here. Space travel will open up with the economies of scale (the first Bic pen cost over $150k...), so all it takes is time and - of course - less interference from Gubmints.
      Musk's problems kinda remind me of Harriman's trials and tribulsations in Heinlein's writings...
      Dang, I'm old.

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    2. To Igor's point, at one time sea travel was expensive and risky. Now, we use it for hauling tonnage and raw materials with almost no risk.

      It is not just the interference from Government. It is also interference from individuals and organizations that have axes to grind against individualism and solving problems.

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  5. Happy Year of the Dragon. (Asian zodiac / SpaceX metaphor?) Anyway, wishing you (all) the best.

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  6. Sil, thanks for bringing the news of spaceflight and tech issues that the media either doesn't cover or more often covers Badly.

    One thing I would advise from personal experience:
    Get the hernia fixed ASAP.
    My Doctor explained it to me this way "Your back is like a suspension bridge and your core muscles are a vital part of that suspension"
    It resulted in a lot of my back issues, and I wouldn't want anyone to go through those pains.
    Prayers for you and your family and may you have a
    Blessed New Year

    MSG Grumpy

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  7. Beans, as usual (with medical), is 100% on the money; recommendation: do it yesterday.
    I've been working on the transversus abdominis for the past 5 years ever since the belly cutter gave me a samurai cut - those core exercises really work!
    financial future: I'm so happy to find another optimist; I thought I was the only one. question: I'm not a total prepper (nor a complete fool, I think), but I'd like to leave the wife enough (just enough!) when I go and I've absolutely no idea despite much study and trial.

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  8. Oh! and wish you a happy and healthy - and an even better one.

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  9. What cannot continue will not. But you'd be amazed at how long the criminals running things can keep the house of cards intact. They are motivated to do so. Because they aren't through looting the Treasury. Looting a nation's treasure is the last thing that happens before the inevitable collapse.

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  10. Considering the amount of feedback, I should have talked more about the umbilical hernia.

    I know they don't get better by themselves and it needs to be fixed. When I had my first meeting with the surgeon who fixed the other hernia back in July of '22, he was doing a medical history interview and I told him about it. He took a quick look at it and said, "those are easy to fix" and moved back to the original subject - about the hiatal hernia.

    I expected that after the January surgery and I was discharged back to life as normal, they'd say something like, "so when do you want to get the other one fixed?" They never did, so I wondered if there's some protocol that Medicare forces on them; like do I need to go back to my GP and start over? It took a couple of months with imaging tests to get ready for that first surgery and then it was peak hurricane season so I asked to be scheduled after that was over. There went another four months.

    I don't particularly want to be recovering during hurricane season either, but sometimes we don't get those choices, if it goes really wrong at the wrong time. If I have the choice it'll be around the March or April.

    I'm not sure if I should call the surgeon or go see my GP.

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    1. Do both. Get irate. Be a pest. Btch, moan, complain. Squeaky wheel will be lubricated. If for no other reason so they won't be getting phone calls just as they are putting for a birdy. Old Grumpy in the desert.

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    2. As Old Grumpy said, do both. The surgeon's office may require a referral in order to proceed with the other hernia.

      Be very annoying. Call daily if necessary. You don't want to get into a situation where you fart or poop or sneeze or laugh or pick up a Lego off the floor and something pops, or rips, or rips then pops, or pops then rips.

      You have an acknowledged issue. Get it taken care of before it's too late.

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  11. As one with both an umbilical hernia, and Hiatal Hernia, and living on Protonix for decades, I never heard of the Linx Device. My GI Doctor and Surgeon never brought up Linx, and suggested my condition was not severe enough for surgery. But I am also have a kidney transplant, which to general surgeons is a touchy area. Im going to investigate the Linx, and I thank you for sharing your medical experiences.

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    1. My clue came from the Prilosec OTC for years, and then needing to carry Tums or something like that with me every day for nearly 50 years.

      I had never heard of the LINX thingy either, and the first thing I asked the surgeon was what's the old, standard treatment. He said it involves cutting the stomach open and wrapping the cut part around the esophagus. Called a Nissen fundoplication, he said the main drawback is being unable to vomit. I can't imagine ever sitting around and saying, "I sure miss being able to vomit," but if or when you really need to do that it seems like it's better to be able to.

      Yeah, I have a card to present to the TSA or if I ever need an MRI, but "they say" it's ordinarily not a problem. The whole thing was pretty easy to go through. The tests beforehand took a lot of time but were still pretty easy to go through.

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