News and Views

Gisele and I drove up to the Mogollon Rim for a couple of days this week and spent some time with Richard and Dianna. It was a great, though short, trip.

We arrived Sunday evening (after making a couple of wrong turns…), and enjoyed a nice barbecued dinner at R&D’s house. We spent the night in a “cabin” at the Happy Jack Lodge, about 10 miles away from the Ranger Station where R&D are staying. The cabin was very nice, more like a triplex with a kitchen, bedroom and living room. More room than we needed, but that’s OK.

The next day is when the excitement happened. We rented a four-seat ATV and explored over 100 miles of the Rim country, mostly staying on graded dirt roads but a couple of times we ventured onto trails where anything less than an ATV would have gotten stuck. Richard spends his days driving around on the roads, so even though we had an iPad with maps, we didn’t really need it. He knew where we were all the time.

Occasionally we passed Forest Service trucks, and Richard would wave them down and (surprise!) he always knew the driver, and would have a short chat with them. Those are the people he works with.

We enjoyed a picnic lunch in the shade of ponderosa pines on the bank of Knoll lake. A picture taken about 15 minutes later would have shown us all stretched out taking naps.

The last adventure before returning the ATV was a visit to a fire tower. This was appropriate since there were a couple of controlled burns going on while we were there. You can see the smoke in this picture taken from the tower. Seeing this, we thought that maybe the burn was no longer “controlled”, but it turned out it was all intentional. The burns made the air a little smoky, but it wasn’t too bad most of the time.

We got back dusty and tired, but it was a lot of fun.

Tired as she was, Dianna cooked a delicious dinner again that evening.

The drive back down into the record heat the next day was a little unwelcome, but it’s always good to get home.

I saw the cardiologist again today, for a followup after wearing the Holter Monitor for 24 hours, a couple of weeks ago.

Everything looks good, my heart is functioning normally and efficiently. However, just to make sure the block doesn’t extend to the left ventricle, I will go back in 6 months. If there are no changes at that time, we may just make it an annual check.

A heart block is a condition where the normal nerve impulses that cause the heart to contract are blocked or delayed. Yesterday my cardiologist told me that I have a complete block of my right bundle branch (RBBB).

In this condition, both atria contract normally, and then the signal progresses down towards the ventricles to cause them to contract. However, the signal that should go to the right ventricle stops before it gets there. The signal for the left ventricle continues and causes the left ventricle to contract normally. Fortunately, the contraction of the left ventricle then triggers the right ventricle to contract, and the heart functions relatively normally.

My cardiologist told me that when he last saw me 7 years ago, I had a partial block in the right ventricle (some signals were getting through) that has now progressed to complete. If I stay this way there will be no problem. My heart is quite healthy and strong otherwise, and I have none of the symptoms that would cause alarm such as fainting spells or shortness of breath. But the concern is that whatever caused the gradual degradation of the right ventricle bundle branch will also affect the left ventricle bundle branch, and that could be a real problem. In that case the ventricles wouldn’t be getting any kind of organized signal and wouldn’t function efficiently; in some cases it would quickly be fatal.

So I’m wearing a Holter Monitor for 24 hours to get a better picture of how well the left bundle branch is working. If it shows signs of degrading, I may be a candidate for a pacemaker. A pacemaker may be in my future anyway, but hopefully not for a few years.

It turns out that RBBB is pretty common in the elderly. One estimate said that 11% of people over 80 have a RBBB. About.com says that “RBBB is itself a benign condition that requires no treatment“, and the Mayo Clinic says that “Most people with bundle branch block are symptom-free and don’t need treatment“.

So my main concern is that whatever caused the progression from partial to complete block in 7 years isn’t also working on the left bundle branch. I should know more after the Holter results are evaluated.

One of the silliest conspiracy theories around is that the government is using high-flying jets to distribute chemical or biological agents to the public for sinister purposes. The believers claim that “Chemtrails” act differently from normal contrails (the white water vapor clouds left in the sky after a jet plane passes) in that they disperse more slowly.

There’s one amusing video of a woman spraying vinegar up into the air to combat the chemtrail. She was careful to point it at the trail so it would be most effective.

Now there is an Arizona state senator hosting a chemtrail forum after being bombarded with emails, letters and phone calls asking for government action to stop the poisoning of the air. Hopefully the senator’s intention is to debunk and calm the upset people, but it’s very hard to convince conspiracy theorists that they are wrong. If you disagree, then you must be part of the conspiracy.

This is up there with the theories that the moon landing was faked, that the U.S. Government planned and executed the 9/11 attacks, and that the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting was a government operation to help promote gun control. Did you know that Obama tried to detonate a nuclear weapon over Charleston, SC, but his Generals thwarted him?

Eight years ago I published some data I had taken on the life of light bulbs. I recorded the lifetimes of bulbs in my kitchen ceiling. Everyone was so excited and thought it was the most interesting blog I had ever posted — NOT!

Anyway, despite the lack of enthusiasm, here’s a brief update.

Back in 2006 I had concluded that fluorescent (CFL) bulbs really did last a lot longer than incandescent bulbs. I have to now include LED bulbs in that statement too; promising, but too little data to draw any conclusions except that they are definitely better than incandescents and look better than fluorescents.

Back in the olden days, I had to replace each incandescent bulb about once a year, so with 7 bulbs there were on average 7 replacements per year. Now, it has been 2 1/2 years since I replaced any bulbs vs. an expected 17 (~2.5 x 7), so I have saved the cost of about 17 light bulbs (plus savings on the cost of electricity, of course).

In each of 2010, 2011, and 2012 I had to replace a single fluorescent bulb. I have never had to replace any LED bulbs, though I only have 3 in that ceiling.

So there you have it. Based on my data, CFLs really do last longer than incandescents, and LEDs are very promising.

Today is the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year, and the day when the sun reaches its apparent farthest north position (of course actually related to the tilt of the earth’s axis and its revolution around the sun).

If you were at the north pole today, you would see the sun move 360 degrees around you at an even distance from the horizon.

Interestingly, the earth’s orbit isn’t exactly a circle, but slightly elliptical. And it happens that the earth is slightly farther from the sun right around our summer solstice, and slightly closer right around our winter solstice. In the southern hemisphere, of course, the situation is reversed and the sun is slightly closer during the summer solstice and farther during the winter solstice. It is believed that this effect has a slight mellowing of the seasons in the north, and a slight enhancement in the south. Thus the Antarctic winter is a little colder than the Arctic winter. There is still some debate on the size of this effect, and other factors, such as the Arctic ocean vs. dry land in the Antarctic probably have some effect too.

And it’s true that with patience and care you can balance an egg on its end today. However, with the same patience and care you can balance an egg on its end any day of the year. There is nothing special about today in that respect.

This seems like an appropriate topic for today, Friday the thirteenth, with a full moon in the sky.

I was in Las Vegas a few years ago with some friends and passed a little idle time playing Keno. Keno is a game like the lottery, where you choose some numbers and hope they match the random numbers chosen by the system.

For one of my bets, I chose the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. My companions thought I was wasting my money, since you never see a sequence like that. Better to emulate the appearance of the actual results by spreading the numbers out in a random-like manner.

But my point then and now is that this set of numbers is exactly as likely as any other set of 6 numbers. It’s true you never see a straight sequence like this, but you could choose any set of 6 numbers and say the same thing. Random is random, no numbers are preferred over any others.

To me it helps emphasize how unlikely it is to win at a game like this. If my set of sequential numbers ever came up, people would be astonished, or suspicious, and ask, “What are the odds?” The answer is that the odds are exactly the same as any other set of 6 numbers. If you’re playing a lottery with 49 balls, the odds of selecting any specific set of 6 balls is about 1 in 14 million.

I just bought a pair of glasses on the internet. It was a good experience.

My situation was the simplest possible. I sent them a pair of old scratched-up glasses and said, “Replace the lenses with identical new lenses but make them photo-active.”

There was a little more to it than that, but not much. They cost less than half as much as they would have at a “normal” optician, and even cost less than they would at Costco.

I opted for the Transitions XTRActive lenses, which darken with exposure to light. They are a new version that gets darker with less light than before– they darken a little even while driving in the car, and darken quite a bit even when I wear a hat that shades them. Regular Transition lenses are a lot less active in those circumstances. The downside is that they take longer to clear up and never become completely clear, but close enough. I tried Transitions before and was disappointed on the limited darkness in many situations. So far I am very happy with these.

After some research, I used ReplaceALens. There are a lot of other reputable companies, but they had the best set of options and had very good BBB and user reviews. I sent them a question by email before I bought and they were very responsive. And while making my glasses they called me with a question to clarify something. All in all I liked working with them and the glasses they sent me were perfect.

Derek started working this week for Aetna Insurance company as an Actuarial Analyst. It’s kind of an apprentice Actuary, and he hopes to move up to a full Actuary soon.

After interviewing with companies all over the country he finally found a match at an office about 4 miles from his house; a 5-10 minute drive depending on traffic. How convenient!

Looks like a good job, and the start of a good career for him.

Dale and I hiked 45 miles through the Superstition Mountains this weekend, in 71 hours, from near Superior to Roosevelt Lake. I hadn’t intended to hike it so fast, but water was scarce and we had to go long distances each day to get to the next reliable water source.

The first day we hiked from Picket Post trail head, near Superior. That day was all in the desert, but the sky was cloudy and temperatures mild. We hiked 12 miles, and just as we were getting worried about finding water, we found water. There was quite a bit of it in rocky pools. Not moving, but clear. Dale filtered it and it was good.

The next day was probably the nicest, though we had quite a climb. We climbed up to Roger’s Trough (where Richard, Dale and I set out on our backpacking hike a couple of years ago), and went up from there to over 5000 feet elevation. The vegetation slowly changed from desert to scrub oak, and then suddenly we went over a pass and found ourselves in a ponderosa pine forest.

It was unexpected and delightful. I didn’t realize that ponderosa pines grew in the Superstitions.

We hiked a few more miles (12 in all for the day) and found ourselves at Reavis Ranch, which Elisha Marcus Reavis established in 1872. We explored around a little, looking at the antiquated farm equipment, though Dale said some of it was newer than he had been using on the farm. I later found out that it had been redeveloped for tourism in the 20th century, but finally burned down and abandoned in 1991.

We found a nice campground near the ranch and close to running(!) water. I was surprised to find running water in the Superstitions after the drought we’ve been having, but there it was, cool, clear and tasty.

We had some excitement each day. Every day we were hiking except the last morning when we were off the trail before 10, we encountered a rattlesnake. Two of them were as large as I have ever seen in Arizona — around 4 feet long and 2 inches diameter. The other was a young one, maybe 8 inches long.

The third day was the hardest. We knew that the next reliable water was 15 miles away, and it turned out to be 15 very difficult miles with very steep climbs and steeper descents on loose rock. I fell 3 times coming down hills, while Dale barely managed to keep his feet. The trail has not been maintained, and there were prickly pears, catclaw acacia, cholla, agave, and mesquite overgrowing the trail that we had to push through. Both of us have severely scratched legs, and Dale bears the scars from a “Christmas cactus” (a kind of cholla). He was dodging a wicked agave that had spines sticking out at shin height, and swerved directly into the cactus which I then had to pull out with pliers. I’m surprised we both didn’t get stuck worse than we did, or even fall into one of the prickly pears we were swerving around.

It was a very long day, and we were beginning to worry about not finding water before dark, or worse running into another rattlesnake in the dark. We came across a couple of brackish pools but decided to push on and finally a little before dark found a stream flowing clear and cool. It wasn’t flowing fast, but fast enough. We camped on a grassy bank overlooking the stream.

The next morning was pretty easy as we got an early start and arrived at Dale’s car about 9:30. Tired and hot, but satisfied. It was a good hike.