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Tomorrow morning I'm going to apply for a state-funded In-Home Caregiver.

This because I just now put a pot in the microwave rather than on the stove. I've been doing stuff like that quite a lot lately. Happily I clued in before I actually nuked it.

If my only problem would be burning down my home and those of my two neighbors I wouldn't need actually home care, just meal delivery. But that's part of that same program.

I'm not yet doing this every day but tomorrow I'll do sing scales before work.

The first time I sang scales I measured my range. I don't recall what it was but I will say I was quite dismayed at how narrow it was.

Today I only sang from C below middle C up to middle C and back. Once I'm confident that I can do so really well, and to project effectively I'll add just one note above and below.

It's not raining so I'll sing around eleven but only one or two sets. I have a shrink appointment in Vancouver at three and just want enough to buy a coffee t drink in her waiting room.

My essay "An NSFW Review of Portland's Oregon Theater" is #6 at Google for:

          oregon theater

... immediately below oregon dot theater... and #8 for:

          "oregon theater"

In other news, I'm working at home tonight, but didn't get started until just a half hour ago, at which point I decided so as to point out that Portland's Oregon Theater is a great place to get blown. Ten clams most night, twenty or twenty five on "Party" nights, when the management springs for vast quantities of pizza and free snacks, and more women turn up.

Be sure to get your Hepatitis vaccination and bring an economy-sized box of those little rubber raincoats:

            "Suit up before you play." -- Ann Landers, "Dear Abby"

I actually woke up at four in the afternoon - as I write this it's just before 2:00 AM - but took quite a long time to come round. I was reluctant to drink coffee as it's been upsetting my stomach lately, but eventually concluded I'd waste the whole night if I didn't.

The coffee of course made me nauseous. Again I was reluctant to take an antacid - ranitidine, generic RanTab - as I suspect - _suspect_ now - that antacids make my suspected - _suspected_ - Pernicious Anemia far worse.

But I just couldn't deal with the nausea anymore so I took a ranitidine. It was not long before my stomach felt just dandy, followed by dizziness, followed by even worse nausea.

Just the one acid would _not_ have caused the dizziness or the nausea, its effect would be far slower than that.

I lay in bed in the dark for a while, eventually to feel just fine and so got back up to prepare for going to work. The nausea and dizziness set back in, so again I lay in bed, intending to work at home so as to not risk getting nauseous on the bus to and fro. Fell asleep but just for an hour or so.

I wanted some coffee when I got back up but would not at first risk getting sick. A couple days ago I was advised to eat something before drinking coffee, and in fact I usually drink it on an empty stomach so I made a Jesus Big pancake. Just one, the size of my whole frying pan you can do that if you add eggs to your Krusteaz.

("Jesus Big" is Newfoundland English for "Ginormous".)

And in fact just to experiment in much the same way as the medical hero who trapped a mosquito against his arm under a cup, then died of Yellow Fever so as to overcome the skepticism of the medical community, I had a whole cup of by now cold coffee. It's been about an hour and I'm still not sick.

I figure I would be nauseous by now, so I screwed around with my logfile analysis, only discover that some completely empty directories at warp life are getting lots of hits, so I redirected them to soggy wizards' homepage.

Tell Me About Your Day.

I'm having a good day. Not every day is good for me but today is.

Radio Paradise is playing some live Grateful Dead.

(She's a Molecular Biologist.) To Wit:

Quite likely I have Pernicious Anemia.

I quite _desperately_ hope I really do.

While it was once a fearsome and cruel way to die - one of my Great-Grandfathers died of it - while it cannot be cured the first effective treatment was the "Liver Therapy", eating vast quantities of raw liver :-0, for which Liver Therapy's three developers shared the 1934 Medicine Nobel.

I expect because I'd rather die in a fearsome cruel way that even just a tiny bit of liver - even cooked - the beneficial part of the liver was ultimately determined to be Vitamin B12. This lead to a great many lives being spared by regular B12 injections for the rest of one's life.

That I regard P.A. as likely is the result of my having experienced increasingly frequent and increasingly severe Neurological symptoms starting in May 2010 with Brain Seizures and Dissociative Fugues - more commonly known as "Fugue States" - then later Broca's - or Expressive - Aphasia in both my writing and my speech.

A week ago Saturday I was _completely_ convinced I was dying when quite suddenly and completely out of nowhere, an incredibly loud ringing in my ears - Tinnitus - was followed with dizziness so severe that even small head movements brought on intense nausea, followed shortly after by numbness in both my lips, then the soles of both my feet.

I rode in style with Lights And Sirens but found myself strangely unable to enjoy the experience.

I went to the ER _every_ time, sometimes on the bus, sometimes in an ambulance. Four CT Scans, an MRI and a whole bunch of physical stroke exams were _always_ perfectly normal, resulting in every medical or mental health professional I've ever discussed this with being completely stymied.

After that Lights And Sirens ride, I _finally_ got referred to A Neurologist With A Clue. She asked me a whole bunch of questions, I pointed out a few things that she hadn't asked about, then she gave me a more-thorough physical stroke exam.

That I'd experienced numbness in my feet led her to order a blood test for Methylmalonic Acid. If B12 is low in the blood, Methylmalonic Acid will be high. She also ordered an Electroencephalogram but they're so booked up I won't get my EEG until April.

Just this morning I met online someone with Pernicious Anemia, who mentioned that _some_ but not all P.A. patients are able to take 3,000 mcg of Methylcobalamin daily, rather than get the injections.

I'm busted flat just now - no clients for several _months_ - so I asked my brother-in-law to order some Methylcobalamin tablets for me. There are lots of different brands of these, as Vegans _must_ take B12 supplements or they'll get the very same Neurological problems as I've got.

(Vitamin pills and fortified foods always have _Cyanocobalamin_ labeled as B12. This because Methylcobalamin is hard to synthesize; two percent of the Cyano form is converted to the Methyl by the liver.)

Tuesday a week ago I was completely convinced I was _already_ far too disabled to work as a coder. Riding home on the bus I was completely overcome with grief and struggling desperately to avoid screaming in agony.

The following morning I initiated my application for Social Security Disability Insurance. I've _never_ regarded my Bipolar-Type Schizoaffective Disorder as a disability. To willingly apply for SSDI is quite a cruel blow to me.

If you have _any_ blood relative who had Pernicious Anemia, I suggested you get your own Methylmalonic Acid test. There are some other types of Vitamin B12 Anemia; in my specific case, I'm pretty sure that it was my taking antacids for nausea that triggered each of my Neurological attacks.

This because the reaction between a stomach enzyme called Intrinsic Factor and something else that ultimately results in absorption of B12 requires an acid stomach.

In addition, older folks like you and I are far more likely to get P.A. because of the degradation of our stomach linings as we age.

On the morning of Halloween, I underwent a Radical Nephrectomy of my right kidney due to a 5.6 cm Renal Cell Carcinoma. Happily, the pathologist's report on his biopsy of my now-external kidney said it had "Negative Margins Of Excision", which means that there were no cancerous cells in the normal tissue surrounding my tumor.

That I was one month later in the ER three times in just one week, all with unexplainable Neurological symptoms is I am quite certain the result of my having eaten Calcium Carbonate Antacid Tablets just like they were M&M candy every day since my surgery.

Forty days later I'm _still_ getting nauseous every single day. Just now I grew concerned about this when I learned that one's risk for Stomach Cancer is _significantly_ increased by having Pernicious Anemia. If this persists for more than the next few days, I'll schedule a visit to my Primary Care Physician so that either she can examine my stomach herself, or she could refer me to a gastroenterologist.

Some EMT suggested my brain disorders could be due to a Psychosomatic Illness. I at first agreed but upon further reflection realized that's _not_ how Psychosomatic illnesses work: they have real bacteria, real viruses and real carcinomas, but the ultimate cause is the human mind. The link between our minds and these very real diseases is as yet quite poorly understood.

Once I do have my Neurologist's final diagnosis, I'm going to dig up the names of every EMT who ever transported me, every medical professional who's ever treated me as well as every Radiologist who's ever reported on my brain scans to explain what My Sparky Brain ultimately turned out to have.

Vitamin B12 Anemias are actually quite common. That leads me to regard all those ER docs and nurses to have been profoundly clueless.

It was that my dizziness came back today that led me to ask Stanley to order that Methycobalamin. I'm confident enough that I really do have PA that I really don't want to wait for my Neurologist to order any treatment, whatever that treatment might ultimately turn out of be.

Hopefully,

Mike

It would NOT help to consume B12-rich foods. I've been doing just that for months.

This afternoon at just my first consultation with what I regard as an uncommonly astute Neurologist, she ordered a blood test for a Vitamin B12 metabolite. I'll have to ask again what its name was, then write it down.

To more-concisely state my own HYPOTHETICAL addition to my exceedingly astute Neurologist's HYPOTHESIS. That is, I am not _yet_ cured of Broca's Aphasia, Short-Term Memory Loss, Long-Term Memory Loss, Brain Seizures and Dissociative Fugues:

I am genetically predisposed to Pernicious Anemia, a once-fatal genetic inability to metabolize Vitamin B12. It was ultimately cured by daily Vitamin B12 Injections. The original cure to Pernicious Anemia was to eat vast quantities of raw liver every single day! :-0

If I _do_ have Pernicious Anemia, it hasn't killed me because only my Great-Grandfather had it - but he _died_ of it. His DNA's contribution to my genome would be no more than one-eighth, because I had eight grandparents. But _chronic_ B12 deficiency is _quite_ certain to lead to bizarre, unexplainable brain disorders. Just eating such B12-rich foods as beef or yogurt is insufficient.

We know that chronic B12 Deficiency 707a11ee FUX0R5 the brain because from time to time, a Vegan doesn't clue in to that B12 is _only_ found in animal products, and doesn't know to eat Nutritional Yeast.

It's widely - and yes I Am Absolutely Serious - that fungus makes B12, but it does not. Rather, Nutritional Yeast is nutritious in other ways, and _quite_ tasty so it's common for people whose feet don't reach all the way down to the ground to season their food with it.

If your a Vegan, you don't eat _fortified_ Nutritional Yeast and you don't take B12 supplements then your entire brain will go totally on the fritz; it could even kill you.

If I understand correctly, while natural B12 is Methylcobalamin, it works just fine to take Cyanocobalamin supplements, which in my understanding can be economically synthesized whereas industrial production of Methylcobalamin cannot. But that's OK because it's the Cobalamin group that's the actual nutrient as employed by the body after being absorbed by the intestine.

Vitamin B12 Deficiency Anemia - in addition to Pernicious there are some other types - can cause "numbness in the hands and feet". I got a Code 3 ride in an ambulance Saturday evening: Lights And Sirens, but I'm afraid I didn't get to enjoy the ride. Among some other bizarre symptoms, I had numbness in my lips and the soles of my feet.

ALL the ER docs and EMTs are by now completely convinced that this is purely psychiatric. I made plain that I regarded its being due to My Sparky Brain as eminently reasonable, but pointed out that "Just knowing that won't make it go away".

They are all convinced that It's All In My Head because _all_ my symptoms are perfectly symmetric between the right and left sides of my body; Dr. Hamburg gave me a far more extensive neurological exam today, but _every_ component of that exam was intended to detect neural asymmetries. It Found None.

BUT!

Systemic brain disease in the case of B12 deficiency is actually a _blood_ disorder. Again my previous understanding was incomplete, in that I've read repeatedly that B12 is "required to make red blood cells". While strictly speaking true, B12 is required to make _every_ kind of human bodily cell.

That it's so crucial to Red Blood Cells is due to their average lifetime of forty days. That means our Red Blood Cells consume B12 far out of proportion to all our other cells.

Cobalamin is a key part of the process that transcribes DNA into Amino Acid Chains.

It happens that I'm quite certain that I have - or perhaps "had" by now - an l-Tryptophan deficiency. I'll explain this in more detail late tomorrow night, but my self-diagnosis I'm quite certain is correct due to my diet having been exceedingly poor since my divorce with Bonita.

Simply Put: cooking for one makes me miserable, I far prefer to each cold chili directly from the can with a spoon.

I've been working around my I Hate Cooking blockage by carefully and methodically selecting then eating vast quantities Of Truly Fat-Ass Lazy Yet Nutritionally Balanced Foods.

In the specific case, that's Chickpeas and Sesame Seeds - Hummus - Soy Beans - Tofu - and Sardines.

I've had a problem with my sardines so far, the ones I've got were cured with salt; I cannot tolerate eating a sardine all by itself. Just now I found it minimally acceptable to eat sardines on bread, but tomorrow I'll chop some up then stir them into Spaghetti Sauces.

This Time For Sure:

Nighty-Night! Don't Let The Code Bugs Byte. ZZZzzz...

Recall that I'm endlessly going on about Vitamin B12. Methylcobalamin is the natural form, in supplements and fortified foods it's Cyanocobalamin. My understanding is that it's the Cobalamin which is a key component of our metabolism.

I read somewhere that B12 is only found in meat and fungus. That article was quite specific that it was found in _all_ fungus. A Soylentil whose nick just now escapes me pointed out that it's _not_ found in fungus, rather that the nutritional yeast that the Vegans are so heavily into is fortified with the stuff.

My cousin is a Vegan; he went totally bananas when I spammed my entire family with the news that I'd be focussing on steaks so as to treat my Anemia, that at the time I figured was due to blood loss from my Kidney Surgery. He gave me some eminently reasonable advice to transition gradually to become at first the Vegetarian, then later a Vegan.

But he also specifically pointed out that he takes B12 tablets.

While some say I'm a Rocket Scientist, Glenn really _is_ a Rocket Scientist. The _only_ thing he's ever told me about his work is that "It has to do with GPS". That he's never said more than that, and that there's nowhere to stand let alone sit in his apartment due to the giant stacks of Physics and Electrical Engineering texts in his apartment and all the way up the walls to his ceiling - every last one of them in Russian, "So as to keep my Russian up"! - lead me to regard it as impolite to ask my favorite cousin to blow his clearance.

Just now I had an office visit with a Neurologist; Dr. Hamburg struck me as quite knowledgeable.

She suggested my Aphasia and Short Term Memory Loss could be a Vitamin B12 deficiency. That's well known to cause really serious brain disorders in vegans who don't take B12 supplements.

She ordered a certain blood test for a chemical that is a metabolite of B12.

I'm not a vegan or vegetarian but I eat very little meat. But I've suspected I'm deficient in the stuff because I also have Anemia; B12 is required to make Red Blood Cells.

More specifically, it's a key component of the process of transcribing DNA into the chains of Amino Acids of which Protein is composed. There are many non-Protein chemicals in our bodies; some of them are compounds of protein and something else, some are nutrients such as Lorenzo's Oil, some are other compounds whose synthesis is catalyzed by Enzymes, which are particularly reactive Proteins.

That name-unrecalled Soylentil also pointed out that B12 doesn't come directly from animals, rather it's made by bacteria. That beef is rich in it is due to soil bacteria colonizing one of a cow's four stomachs. But I expect that corn fed beef could be deficient as well. I don't know yet whether cows actually _require_ B12 but if so, then their feed corn would be fortified with it. Again I don't know about meat from other species of animals.

That our name-unrecalled Soylentil clued me in about the soil bacteria, and that a fellow NedSpace member does marketing for a Portland Kombucha brewer led me to speculate about making a variety of Kombucha with B12 bacteria in it. But that natural - not fortified or supplemented - is found only in animal meat and cultured animal products leads me to expect you can't brew B12 Kombucha.

That's just as well: while I greatly enjoy taking a break by drinking a bottle of the vast quantities of Kombucha that my marketing colleague keeps our fridge stocked with, despite that Kombucha has very little alcohol in it, because as my ex Bonita was wont to say, "Mike drinks like a girl", just one bottle of that fizzy, refreshing beverage puts me under the table.

(By contrast, being from a sea-faring culture, Bonita drinks like a fish.)

My Facebook Friend Chiraag Nataraj - also a vegan - gets his B12 from Kefir, a cultured milk beverage. That led me to look for a list of foods that are high in B12, resulting in my reading The A list of B12 foods at the Harvard Medical School website.

Clams have vast quantities of B12. I really enjoy all manner of clams and other shellfish, but around here - Vancouver Washington and Portland Oregon - they are somewhat expensive. For me to adopt clams as a staple food in my diet might be a problem due to absorption of such ocean pollutants as the Mercury that is thrown high into the air by burning coal, a far more short-term problem than climate change. But really I don't know so I'll research that further, as well as shop around for clams as well as - possibly - other B12-rich seafoods.

Yogurt has lots of B12 so just a couple weeks ago I started eating vast quantities of the stuff so as to treat my Anemia.

Maybe I'll have to remain a coder rather than making it as a Rock Star. ;-D

I do find great inspiration from Brian May, a guitarist and founding member of Queen. Despite being a Rock Star he is _also_ an Astronomer. Not just a hobbyist: one of his experiments is in _orbit_.

But Brian still has Big Hair, whereas I'm doing pretty good when I manage to sprout any hair at all. ;-(

PS: It won't be long at all before I make more money as a Singer than I can make writing code for clients. More about that in a subsequent Wall Of Text.

I've got an appointment with a neurologist in 2 1/2 hours. Usually such specialist appointments take three months to obtain but my recent visits to the ER led to this one getting expedited.

I had this grand plan that I would turn in early, so I would be fresh as a daisy, if not actually able to speak coherently.

Instead I was up until 1:30 AM, set my alarm for 9:30, then got a call at 8:30 from one of my neurologists staff with a question about my insurance.

Perhaps I'd feel better if I ran myself through with my father's ceremonial sword.

(I'm logged in with Tor Browser so as to ensure my privacy and anonymity.)

To Wit:

He at first tried to snatch a five-spot from someone's
hand, but that quick-thinking fellow shoved his hand - and his five -
in his pocket.

I grabbed that Enterprising Young Man around his neck while he was
still leaning down then patiently and lucidly explained that "I'm
calling the cops unless you give that _back_!"

I once studied Judo, a purely _defensive_ martial art, which even when
used in Production only rarely injures one's attacker.

He dropped my Samoleons, I let him go then he belted me right in the
head, so hard that I saw the world spin round. I was dizzy for several
minutes after.

Get This:

"I was doing you a favor! I could have traded that money for _more_ money."

Yet I remain skeptical.

He claimed that he acted in his own self-defense despite my not having
injured him in any way, and despite my having let go of him before he
punched me. In the direct presence of a whole bunch of witnesses, he
repeatedly and asserted that I'd punched him first.

He Damn near got Tazered by a helpful bystander who was just on his
way to collect donations for The Salvation Army.

ProTip: Don't Mess With The Salvation Army.

I called 9-1-1 while he and I were still arguing but realized the
Dispatcher was losing precious time so I gave my report, my name and
my number.

By the time I got off the phone he'd walked out of sight but I gave
the Dispatcher quite a good visual description. It was not long at all
before a Prowler drove expeditiously past, it's driver and and I
exchanging smiles and thumbs up.

Officer Hubbard of the Portland Police Bureau turned up next. He asked
Mr. Salvation Army for a quick witness report then the Officer had him
write down his name and number in his notebook.

And yes, Portland's new Police Chief really _is_ named Chief Outlaw. :-0

After I gave him a more detailed report, Officer Hubbard took my name,
number and home address.

"If you capture him, I will enthusiastically press charges because..."

"I know. These guys even hit Nordstrom sometimes" - I was singing
right in front of its main entrance in Downtown Portland - "and the
cafes".

I told all the witnesses that "After I chill for a bit I'll resume
singing" but was still so shaken after Portland's Finest department
that I walked back to work. I just ate lunch back at work, and I
really _will_ go back out then sing in front of Nordstrom again.

Made eight clams by doing so.

As of late I've been opening with "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" but for
the foreseeable future I'll open instead with "Battle Hymn Of The
Republic".

That particular song works _quite_ well for me.

Defiantly,

Michael David Crawford, Baritone

For a while now there's been a Truly Righteous Donut Shop just one block from my home. "Righteous" in that they serve espresso drinks and ice cream as well, and have free WiFi.

But I'm their _only_ regular.

I'd go every morning but I've been busted because I've had no clients for several months. But whenever I sing on the street I make a point of spending some of my tips there, usually a medium coffee but sometimes a scoop of ice cream with a shot of espresso poured over it - try that yourself, it's Truly Righteous as well.

They've had quite a lot of trouble finding enough employees. Their location behind a large bus shelter makes them difficult to see from the street, and their sign does not light up at night. They sadly told me they'd be closing soon. Their saving grace is that their other location sells donuts like hotcakes.

I'm friends with most of the people who work there. Most weekends I'll take the bus to that other location, when Spring comes I'll ride my bike.

One Monday I clued in to that I have a clear path to earning more money by singing on the street than by contract programming. That's not at all because I'm such a bad coder but because I've gotten to be a Truly Righteous singer - my best song is Somewhere Over The Rainbow followed closely by The Start Spangled Banner.

All but a very few of the clients I've ever signed have taken at least a month to close, quite commonly three months. I have not the first clue as to how to estimate software cost and time, so throughout this whole time I've commonly underbid jobs.

What's the very most Righteous about busking is that I get paid on the spot.

The gating factors to my singing full-time are that a congenital deformity in my hips leads it to being painful to stand in one place for an extended period of time, however I'm hopeful that having a Podiatrist make me a custom pair of Shoe Orthotics would fix that - my insurance will cover it if I'm referred by my Primary Care Physician.

Also an obstacle is my small set list. I don't sing it repeatedly at any one venue so as to avoid driving my neighbors bananas while they're at their places of employment in Downtown Portland. I have a really, really hard time with memorizing new lyrics; the only way I can do so is to read from printed lyrics that I hold in my hand as I sing. Strangely no one objects to this aside from one Useless Bint who pointed out that if I can afford an iPad to read lyrics from, then surely I don't really need my tips.

Strangely she would not have objected to my $1,500 Fatar MIDI Controller - no sound, I use an Emu sound module for that - nor my $250 Busker's Roland Busker's Amp, so-called because it can run off batteries.

But I don't want to catch crap like that so always I read from hardcopies. But that leads to my plan to license in-copyright song lyrics and sheet music - ORLY? RLY! - then sell songbooks as I sing.

Finally, there remain some serious problems with my voice, most serious that that singing high notes often make me cough uncontrollably. But I've had enough professional Voice Lessons that I know how to fix that problem all on my own:

Sing Vocal Exercises accompanied by my keyboard, mostly successively higher scales - I can play all twelve Western music Major Scales as well as all three variations of the Minor Scales with both hands in parallel motion, up and down.

Mick Jagger is well into his eighties, even _he_ still singles scales every single day. I'll go do so right now.

Don't worry - I won't.

I won't tell a human soul other than those in a position to fix it, however it's a systemic weakness, and cannot be fixed by issuing patches. This problem won't get fixed until the IETF issues some future RFCs - more than one of them - and even then, not until those new standards are _widely_ implemented.

I've never mentioned this in a public way - this is the very _first_ time I've done so - and I've only told one other person that I know how, but not how it would be done.

If you're in a position to implement new RFCs at your company, or in your contributions to a Free Software or Open Source codebase that you are a _commiter_ to, please fetch my OpenPGP key from a keyserver, if your key isn't already there, please submit it then _email_ your key fingerprint - I think that's 16 digits of hex or so - then I'll add it to my keyring.

$ gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --list-keys 69297A03F84E2022
pub rsa4096 2018-11-18 [SC] [expires: 2023-11-17]
            87741D160E80D4F860A192FE69297A03F84E2022
uid [ultimate] Michael David Crawford
sub rsa4096 2018-11-18 [E] [expires: 2023-11-17]

Note that I do not yet have a key for mike@soggywizards.com.

$ gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --receive-key 69297A03F84E2022

Please do _not_ sign my key - nor anyone else's - unless I show your my _passport_ in your direct presence. That my technical articles are so popular led a few complete strangers who I'd never met to sign my old key. The key I've got now is _only_ self-signed.

Please keep it that way until we meet for coffee. But not a beer; I only get drunk when a close friend has been unlucky in love. Then we both Pray To The Porcelain God.

I must be purposefully oblique about the details I provide until I can feel certain not just that those who I share this with will keep a lid on it but also until I've found enough RFC-implementors that once I do provide the details, they'll be able to apply the fixes expeditiously.

It happens that I know some primary developers of some stacks. I also know some leading security experts. I'll explain this to a few of them first. I'm on good terms with some vendors' security people, I'll explain it to them as well.