Big Medicine

I have suffered from Raynaud’s syndrome for a number of years.  Cold is the trigger for the syndrome.  Raynaud’s affects the body’s extremities—fingers and toes normally.  For me, fingers are the problem.   Something as simple as grabbing a cold steering wheel might trigger a Raynaud’s event.  Once triggered, my fingers abruptly turn stark white and go entirely numb.

Raynaud’s syndrome is an over-response by our body when confronted by cold.  Essentially, the smaller arteries that supply blood to the skin constrict excessively, limiting blood supply to the affected area.

When suffering a Raynaud’s episode, my hands feel dead and function poorly.  They will feel this way until normal circulation is restored.  To end an episode, I must warm my hands in some fashion. 

I recently learned of a surprising medicine that may be of some value in combatting Raynaud’s syndrome.

The medicine?

Viagra.

I am normally not big on prescriptions (pun intended), but…

—Mitchell Hegman

Rules of the Fire

There are a few rules to observe when starting and tending a fire in the winter to burn limbs after felling trees.

I’m kidding.

There are no rules.

It’s winter.

It’s fire.

Yesterday, Arnold and I spent the day at my cabin, felling huge beetle-kill trees in the meadow and cleaning up the branchy aftermath.   He felled the trees, actually.  I, on the other hand, broke through the ice and fell in the creek.

Both of us fed the fire as we limbed the fallen trees.   For several hours, we dragged limb after limb to feed the fire.  The fire raged, sounding, at times, like a mechanical contrivance.  Bright flames wove themselves high into the winter air.  Heat pushed at us as we pitched our chainsaw cuttings into the flames.

Singed hair and good stuff all day long.

Posted are photographs of our fire and a video of a tree dropping.

—Mitchell Hegman

Pineapple

While in the Philippines last year, I fell in love with pineapple.  Prior to travelling to the Philippines, I could take or leave pineapple.

A tray in my Manila hotel room featured a couple of complementary packets of dried pineapple alongside two bottles of water.  I never considered opening one of the packets.   Several days into my stay, Desiree opened one.  She offered me a small chunk, which I immediately popped into my mouth.  “This is good,” I remarked.  “Really good!”

The dried pineapple was not too sweet and definitely was not sour the way pineapple can be.  I became rather addicted to the gummy little chucks.

On the 9^th of December, this year, my dearest Desiree stuffed packages of dried pineapple into a box and sent the box my direction by way of the Philippines postal service.  The Philippines postal service is not known for efficiency.  For two weeks, Desiree tried to follow the package with a tracking number.  Each of her inquiries resulted in the message: “package cannot be found.”

Amazingly enough—some twenty days later—after a little molestation at U.S. customs, my rural postal delivery person stuffed the box (no room to spare) into my mailbox.

Sometimes, even in the year 2020, stuff actually works!   

Thank you, Des!

—Mitchell Hegman

This, I Will Not Eat

I have eaten bugs before.  I ate a fried coconut grub in Vietnam.  During high school, I ate a few flies I plucked off the windows in Senior Hall.  As a kid, I ate ants now and then.

Ants, by the way, taste like lemons.

I mention the “bug” thing in light of a burger I recently read about.  I would eat bugs again, but I would never eat this particular burger.

The burger is being sold at McDonald’s outlets in China as part of a limited series of “members only” promotions.  The sandwich is made of two slices of Spam, a layer of Oreo cookies, all topped with a generous serving of mayonnaise.

—Mitchell Hegman

Source: huffpost.com

Foreshadowing

I watched another episode of the original Star Trek series from the 1960s.  You figure out pretty early on in the series that any crew member not part of the regular cast is toast if they are transported down to a strange planet with the regular cast.  Typically, they die long before the halfway point of the episode.

Last night something even more telling occurred.  Two landing parties were beamed down to a planet at the outset of an episode.  A quick assessment revealed five nameless crew members were there.  Four men and one striking blonde woman.

“Uh-oh,” I said to my cat, “This is going to be a tough episode for the generic dudes.   But the woman will be fine.  Pretty blonde woman crew members don’t get killed on Star Trek.”

Within ten minutes, three of the generic males were dead.   The fourth one lasted until very near the end.

—Mitchell Hegman

Breakfast and Dinner

Though we reside on opposite sides of our beautiful blue planet (where their morning is my night), Desiree, I, and her three girls managed to share meals on both Christmas Eve and Christmas.  We accomplished this through collective technologies that seemed beyond us only a dozen years ago.

Honestly, we fashioned a much better end to this year than I ever imagined possible.

—Mitchell Hegman

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all!

Wishing everyone a wonderful day. 

Today, I am posting images from Christmas seasons long ago.  Each photograph brings a different sort of smile for me.

1979: Kevin

1982: A Snowman Named Drummond

1985: Helen and Uyen

—Mitchell Hegman

A Christmas Gift

The adults in my family largely stopped giving each other Christmas gifts years ago.  Mostly, we recognized the struggle with finding meaningful gifts.

My sister, Debbie, made an exception this year.  She found the perfect gift and gave it to me early.  It’s an ornament for the year 2020.

Yesterday, I hung it on my tree.  Today, I am sharing a photograph of my tree and the 2020 ornament.

  

My Tree

2020 Ornament

—Mitchell Hegman

Conversation Following a Vasectomy

UROLOGIST: You will need to ejaculate twenty times before we can test a sample to see if the vasectomy has been successful.

MAN: That’s a lot!

UROLOGIST: Well, you can have protected sex with your wife.  Or, if need be, you may masturbate.

MAN: Seriously.  So…you are telling me I have a perfectly valid medical reason to masturbate?

UROLOGIST: Yes.  I think that’s a fair statement.

MAN: Wait.  We need to collect my wife so she can hear you.  This is a once in a lifetime moment.

—Mitchell Hegman

Day Five: An Unusual Chunk of Ice

On day three, with the temperature reaching 50 degrees, my chunk of ice shrank rapidly.  At midafternoon, the wind knocked it over.

Day four once again brought above-freezing temperatures.  A few drops of rain fell in the late morning.  The ice shrunk dramatically, but managed to hang on.

This morning marks the beginning of day five for my chunk of ice.  I presently have a temperature of 48 degrees.  Additionally, yesterday was the winter solstice (the shortest day of the year).  Today will bring a few more seconds of melting daylight.

This is the end for my ice.  By the close of this day, the ice will be a puddle.  Most interesting to me is the fact the ice generally retained its original shape as the elements whittled it away.

Day 5 (In hand)

Day 3 (Tipped Over)

Day 1 (In Hand)

—Mitchell Hegman

Rabbit Starvation

I learned something while watching the reality (survivalist) TV series Alone.  You can, essentially, starve to death while eating plenty.  The phenomenon is often referred to as “rabbit starvation.”

An article I found as bbc.com noted: “Arctic explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson wrote about a phenomenon among the peoples of northern Canada called rabbit starvation, in which those who eat only very lean meat, such as rabbit, “develop diarrhea in about a week, with headache, lassitude, a vague discomfort.” To avoid death from malnutrition, rabbit starvation sufferers must consume some fat, he writes.”

Essentially, people eating only lean meat will suffer “protein poisoning.”  Our bodies have been manufactured to operate on the intake of three macronutrient fuels: protein, carbohydrates, and fat.

Eating too little fat in your diet will impact both physical health and mental acuity.  For survivalists in the Arctic as winter sets in, securing food with enough fat is particularly difficult.  This is especially true as the waters freeze, making catching trout and salmon more difficult.        

—Mitchell Hegman

Sources: https://www.bbc.com, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_poisoning, https://www.healthline.com/health/protein-poisoning

Day Two: An Unusual Chunk of Ice

On Friday, as mentioned in my blog yesterday, my neighbor’s son gave me a chunk of lake ice.  For no particular reason, I placed the ice on my back deck.  I am going to leave it there until the elements whittle it down to a puddle. 

No idea how long that will take.  Obviously, this will depend on weather conditions.

Yesterday, between temperatures in the forties and brisk winds, the ice melted a little.  In doing so, the chunk transformed into something looking like a gargantuan precious gemstone.

—Mitchell Hegman

An Unusual Chunk of Ice (Montanans are Strange)

If you live in Montana for long, you’ll start doing strange things.   This strange behavior might be attributed to something in the water—much of which is frozen this time of year.

Tad St Clair did an odd thing yesterday.  He sawed a chunk of ice from the surface of the lake and drove it up to my house.  I answered my doorbell to find him standing there with the chunk of ice.  “This is for your Scotch,” he suggested.

Naturally, I said this: “I don’t think so, but I’ll set it out on my back deck and see how long it lasts.”

I happened to be on a video call with Desiree when I answered the door.  She has never seen snow, let alone a frozen lake.  I showed her the chunk of ice.  And then she and Tad exchanged salutations.

A few minutes after receiving the ice, I walked down to the lake to join Tad, his father, and his father-in-law at a campfire.  I shared a wee dram of Scotch with them and then I walked out on the lake just because I can.

Upon returning home a couple hours later, I sent a text to Desiree.   At one point in our conversation, she asked about the chunk of ice:

DESIREE: Did the ice melt?

ME: Heavens, no.  It will take days or weeks this time of year.

DESIREE: Oh.

ME: I will send you a pic!

DESIREE (After receiving the photo):  Thanky for the pic.  So handsome!

ME: You are right, honey.  It is very good-looking ice.

—Mitchell Hegman

Through the Fence

I am not trying to be mean here, but this year’s crop of fawn deer are knuckleheads.  To be fair, you can say this about fawns every year.  All fawns work on a learning curve for the first four seasons of life.  Dealing with fences is particularly tricky.

On a drive home from town yesterday (of all things I needed vinegar), I approached six whitetail deer crossing from one side of a secondary highway to the other.  Four does and two fawns.  I also saw fences on either side of the road.

I have seen this game before.  If I tried to roll past them, at any speed, the fawns would panic.  This might spur them directly back into my path or cause them to lunge headlong into the fence.  Since I was the only car on the highway, I stopped well short of the deer.

The does finished crossing the highway and sprang over the fence.  The two fawns stopped short.  They paced back and forth in agitation.  One of the moms stopped on the other side of the fence, waiting.

“Come on, kids,” I said.

One of the fawns launched at the fence. 

The fence rejected it.

The second fawn seeing this, trotted down the fenceline a distance, saw an opening between strand wires, and dove through straightaway.

“We can all learn together,” I suggested.

The once-rejected fawn paced back and forth a bit more, finally found an opening, and then dove through.

I rolled on.

—Mitchell Hegman

Survival in the Arctic

I am watching another series about survivalists.  In this series, Alone, ten survivalists are plopped down in the Arctic at the beginning of autumn.  Each participant is allowed to bring 10 items from a list of 40.  Firearms are excluded from the list.

Last person standing wins.

These programs fascinate me to no end.  I enjoy watching to see how each participant’s strategy pays off as time drags on.  Everything matters.   Shelter type.  Hunting strategy.  Success in starting and maintaining fires.   Mental fortitude.

I am a few episodes in and two participants have tapped out within a few days of their arrival.

I have my own strategy for binge-watching: Drag my 20 pounds of housecat onto my lap and tell him how I would survive.

“I wouldn’t,” I tell him.

—Mitchell Hegman

Strange Days (An Ode Written in the Style of Richard Brautigan)

When feeling poetic,

We consider burying our dead in the sky.

But we are seldom poetic.

So, we drink dark beer instead,

and pump iron. 

Not necessarily in that order.

—Mitchell Hegman

A Comforting Habit

I wore a toolbelt for the better part of thirty years while working as an electrician.  After a few years of wearing “the tools,” I got more than accustomed to them.  Eventually, climbing into my belt was comforting, if not fulfilling.

With my tools secured to me, I was a warrior.   

Yesterday, in preparing to order the glass and structure kit for the sunroom I will be building in the spring, I grabbed a measuring tape for the purpose of measuring exact dimensions at the exterior corner of my house where I intend to construct the room.  A few minutes after I finished my measurements, I discovered the tape remained clipped to the pocket of my pants.

“Jeez,” I thought, “I don’t need that anymore.”

I almost reached down to unclip the tape.

Almost.

And then I thought, “No harm in leaving it there for a while.  I kind like it.”

So, I left the tape there for a while longer as I puttered around the house.  Not quite a warrior, but happy enough to pretend.

—Mitchell Hegman

Know Your Enemy

As a country, we rather cycle our “enemies” in and out of fashion.  The list is ever-changing, if not fickle.  Some countries on the list (Iran) make perfect sense to me.  At the same time, some not making the list (Saudi Arabia, I am talking to you), I am less certain about.

And there was that time—pretty much the entire time I was growing up—when Red China was one of our most looming enemies.  But in the late 1970’s our stance softened considerably.  In the 1980’s the first tourists from the United States were welcomed into China.  In 1985, I and my buddy, Kevin St. Clair, traveled to Mainland China to see it for ourselves.

I took a bunch of photographs, too.

In recent years, China sems to be clawing back up to enemy status.  This is, for lack of a better word, unfortunate.  I enjoyed China and liked the people I met there.

Just to be informative, I thought I might post a couple images from July 9, 1985.  Kevin and I were in Huaxi, China, at the time.  This, my dear friends and family, is what our enemy looks like up-close.

—Mitchell Hegman

Eating Dinner Alone

I have eaten my simple dinner: a chicken drumstick, carrot sticks, and a quartered gala apple.

Eating alone, as I have for longer than I care to remember, I thought about one of the times when I was especially stupid.

Several couples were playing Pictionary—you know, the game where clues for words must be drawn on paper in the form of pictures.  On an “all play” I was given the word for our team and one of the girls from the other team was given the word to draw clues for.

I thought about the word and tried to devise the best way I could sketch my clues.  As soon as we started, I drew out a saguaro cactus with three arms.  I then started to sketch a mountain behind the cactus.  As is always the case, both teams were paying attention to both drawings.  Everyone quickly noticed something amiss about our drawings. 

“Wait a minute.  Stop!” the other picturist suggested.  “Let me see the card again.”

She picked up the word card, read it, and laughed.  “The word is ‘dessert’ not ‘desert.’  You know…like pudding.”

I looked at her fledgling drawings of a bowl and a spoon.

For dessert?  Humble pie.

Richard Brautigan wrote a poem about eating dinner alone.  His final lines are these:

“God, I hate eating dinner alone.  It’s like being dead.”

—Mitchell Hegman

More Wine and Cheese

I have been waiting my entire adult life for this.  Finally, the news has arrived.  Eating cheese and drinking wine may be good for you!

Allow me to express that in a formula:  Wine + Cheese = Healthy

Turns out, eating more cheese and drinking more wine helps reduce cognitive decline and even helps ward off Alzheimer’s disease.

This stunning news comes from a long-term study of nearly 1800 participants, aged between 46 and 77 years.  The members of the study, all from the United Kingdom, underwent assessment and cognitive testing between 2006 and 2010 with follow-up assessment twice after the original study.  The final assessment was completed in 2016.

The study essentially documented the food and alcohol consumption of each participant and placed that alongside results of fluid intelligence tests.   

According to the article I read:

The results reveal a surprising diet that may form an unlikely defense against cognitive decline later in life. Researchers discovered cheese provides the most protection against age-related cognitive issues. Its impact is significantly greater than any other food in the report.

The study also finds consuming alcohol daily, particularly red wine, can improve cognitive function as you age.

Interestingly enough, I started drinking red wine in the evenings many years ago on advice from my doctor.  The idea, then, was to balance my cholesterol levels.

Good medicine, that red wine.

And cheese.

—Mitchell Hegman

SOURCE: https://www.studyfinds.org/wine-cheese-reduce-cognitive-decline-alzheimers (Chris Melore)

Questions That Keep Me Awake at Night

• Is yo-yo a sport?
• Is it wrong to make judgements about people based solely on the color they have painted their house?
• Would I be taller if my parents had named me Paul as they once considered?
• If we are being monitored by aliens from outer space (as many suspect), will they consider us intelligent lifeforms after witnessing one of our beer can melting guild meetings at the campfire?
• Is it okay if I start believing in Santa Claus again?  Just for this year?
• What is another word for “Aaayyy!”

—Mitchell Hegman

Then and Now

I have, as mentioned in previous blogs, been spending time converting old film slides into electronic (jpeg) files.

The process has been pleasurable.  Sometimes, a photograph or series of images will flood me with sparkling memories.  On many occasions, I have paused, sat back in my chair, and allowed myself to drift away to times and places certain.

Most interesting are the slide carrousels I put together years ago for the purpose of telling a complete story.  I have nearly 200 slides, for example, capturing the construction of my house—from the first scoop of earth to the final piece of trim.

Today, I am posting several images of my house.  A few nibbles of the story.   The first images are from the construction process in 1991.  The later images are from the last couple years.

—Mitchell Hegman

100 Beer Cans = Terry

We have established a beer can melting guild out here at the lake.  Well, mostly the “guild” is Tad St. Clair stuffing a small crucible into our lakeside campfire and melting down aluminum beer cans.  The other day, however, I took a more active role in the guild.  “Let’s see if we can melt a hundred cans into one pour,” I suggested.

Oh, yes, that’s the other half of the deal, we (read Tad here) pour the molten aluminum into various makeshift molds, including a rusty cast iron frying pan. 

“A hundred cans,” Tad ruminated.  “Okay.  You have to count the cans.  I will do the melting.”

“Deal.” I agreed.

Melting down one-hundred beer cans sort of turned into actual work (for Tad).  But, after something close to two hours, we reached our mark and stoked the fire to build up heat and get the metal juicy enough to pour into the frying pan.

After cooling down our pour on the lake ice, Tad presented our work to everyone.  That’s when someone remarked: “Hey, that looks like Terry!”

Sure enough, one-hundred melted beer cans turned into Terry’s profile.

Posted is a photograph of me holding aluminum Terry alongside our authentic Terry. 

—Mitchell Hegman

The Starlink Chain

On Saturday, I and several others had a social-distanced campfire gathering at the lakeshore.  Not long after full darkness enveloped us, I turned away from the fire to allow the flames to warm my backside.  That’s when something unlikely caught my attention.

Amid the stars stationed above me, I saw a string of lights stretched across the sky.  The lights—all spaced apart at fairly uniform distances—were moving as if tethered together and being dragged along by forces unseen.

Wondering if I might be imagining what I was seeing, I called out to someone else.  “Tad, come look at this.  Am I seeing what I think I am seeing?”

Tad walked to my side of the fire and peered up into the darkness.  “What is that?” he asked.

“I am not imagining that, then?

“No.”

“I know what it is.   It’s Elon Musk.  It’s his satellite array.  I have been reading about it, but have never seen it.”

Before long, everyone had turned away from the fire.  We all watched the array slide across the sky.

We were witnessing the march of the Starlink chain of satellites.  Mr. Musk has been using his SpaceX Starships to plant satellites in the firmament.  The chain we saw will be part of a massive network of 12,000 satellites swarming high above us to provide new high-speed internet connections across the world in the future.

My first sight of the array left me a little bewildered.   I am not convinced I like it.

Posted below is a YouTube video of the string passing overhead.

—Mitchell Hegman

VIDEO LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgysWWwESfU

My Best Question

I have been putting together a few multiple-choice questions for the purpose of updating a set of practice exams I created as part of a preparation course for electricians wishing to take the master electrician licensing exam here in Montana.

Writing multiple-choice questions is far more difficult than I ever imagined.

Fashioning the question and the correct answer is a cinch.  Supplying three distractors (incorrect answers) is often extremely difficult.  The problem is making sure the distractors seem plausible.  I have struggled, literally, for hours with some questions.

I believe I finally drafted the perfect question. 

Here, then, my beautiful question:

1.      In a capacitive circuit, as frequency is increased, the current will __________.

a.      ____ increase

b.      ____ decrease

c.       ____ remain the same

d.      ____ transform into a delicious chocolate treat

—Mitchell Hegman

NOTE: For those of you outside my field, the correct answer is “increase.”