Nobody saw that coming

A friend emailed me that his neighbor's son had just committed suicide. Please understand that I am not in a position to share many details.

The son was 30 years-old and it was totally out-of-the-blue. In retrospect, the only (possible) tell is that the son moved all of his useful tools and equipment from his garage in one state into his dad's barn on "the farm" in a different, nearby state.

This graphic understates the risk of suicide. A casual observer would think that the risk drops dramatically after age 12. What is really happening is that other causes-of-death are increasing and thus dilute the share caused by suicide.

US data shows that the crude death-rate from age 20-through-84 is 18/100k per year, +/- 3. It is a bit lower than that through the teen years but coroners have been known to rule deaths "accidental" to protect the mental health of the parents.

Prayer and prayer-like practices

I was listening to a video about dementia and how prayer seems to help knit the shattered neural links back together. I sent this link to a friend going through a rough patch. I took the liberty of jumping into the video mid-way to minimize the amount of material he would have to wade through to get to the material that applied to him.

Cutting to the chase, prayer (and similar practices) slows down the process that runs the accelerator-pump that gooses cortisol FIGHT/FLIGHT production while simultaneously feeding the regions of the brain that help us feel "connected" to people and the regions of the brain where we conceptualize continuity of past/now/future. 

Since he has a lot of animosity toward Christianity and "organized" religion, I also took the liberty of sending him some links to a channel that posts inspirational prose that are (mostly) NOT Biblical:

"Many good videos HERE

The man in the arena by Teddy Roosevelt (Run-time 6:20)

Desiderata by Max Ehrmann (Run-time 3:30)

IF by Rudyard Kipling (Run-time 2:50)

The Road Less Traveled by Robert Frost" (Run-time 1:45)

Do what you can

It is pretty clear that the young man who chose to commit suicide had been planning it. In the note, he left all of his "things" to his dad.

It is almost impossible to stop somebody who has fully decided to commit suicide. The window of opportunity is BEFORE they make that decision.

It will be useful to me and to other readers if you shared some of your favorite pieces of prose in the comments.

Wanton Destruction

Stop Oil protestor gluing hands to pavement during London rush-hour

Wanton destruction, in spite of frequent, noble-sounding rationalizations, is motivated by the unholy glee of a sadist inflicting pain upon others.

Spoiled children destroying art works that cannot be replaced

"Climate Activists", or whatever they call themselves today, are rejoicing that Stellantis (formerly Chrysler) lost $26 BILLION on all Electric Vehicles.

Ford lost $19 BILLION.

GM lost $10 BILLION.

"They deserve to lose money" is how they brush it off. 

That money could have been used to create long-lasting jobs in Michigan and Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee. But now that money is gone and the spoiled children don't give a shit about families where the primary breadwinner got laid off.

They don't give a shit about anybody except others in their tribe.

Stopping construction equipment. Nothing says you care about people more than stopping the flow of oil

 

Nothing demonstrates your intelligence and moral superiority more than taking selfies as you breaking-and-entering into a bank.

And what is most incredible to me is that these same tantrum-throwing children are now running for public offices and their patterns of wanton destruction are not being talked about.

We were deeply distressed when they were seven years-old and throwing performative tantrums in the grocery store checkout lane ahead of us but now millions of people are voting to put them into offices where the gleeful sadists will control the flow of billions and trillions of dollars. 

What is wrong with people? Suddenly, being a viral nuisance and destroyer are qualifications to lead?

Running, new neighbors and other stuff

Running notes

Today's goal was one-mile. My stretch goal was two-miles.

I hit the stretch goal of two miles with a pace of 12:44 per mile. That is significantly faster than the 13:52 I ran the mile two days ago.

My objective is to find "the wall" in terms of distance, to regain my running form, to get all of the stability muscles dialed in and then to work on speed. One of the first rules of increasing your fitness after age 50 is DON"T GET INJURED.

At this point, I will be very happy to find myself running three miles in 36 minutes by October 15.

One of the quirks of dead-lifting is that it doesn't exercise my lower legs all very much. I lift my toes up so I don't lift with my weight too far forward. That means that the weight is centered somewhere between the balls of my feet and my heel.

Running, even when done slowly, fully activates shins and calves, especially when running on uneven surfaces. There are also many more torsional, core muscle groups coming into play.

One downside of adding running to my routine is that I screwed up and did not let the ducks out this morning. Fortunately, today was not a hot, sunny day. I let them out when I would normally be penning them up for the night. They will get an hour to eat, play in the water and roam around. 

Life is a process. I made a mistake. I got lucky. My ducks may have been uncomfortable but they still look healthy.

Mowing

I mowed forty minutes today.

Between the lifting, the running and the mowing, I am feeling pretty beat up. 

Other

I installed a light in the basement. Mrs ERJ thinks I am a genius. I cannibalized a light from our seedling grow shelves and will replace it later. 

Thank-you for your tolerance regarding the political memes

I know that many of you visit this site to get away from that kind of thing.

Generating those memes is one of the ways I have for dealing with the uncertainty elections create. The production values of the memes aren't all that great but quantity has a quality of its own.

New neighbor

One of my neighbors sold off 3 acres. The buyer of the lot stopped and chatted with me while I was standing at the end of my driveway a few days ago.

I heard equipment running at the back of his lot as I was cooling down from my run (i.e. walking the rest of the way back home). I walked back there to say "Howdy!"

He remembered me. There are some advantages to having a hunched back, missing teeth, a lisp, rickets and a face that shows evidence of a childhood case of the yaws.

I think he is going to fit into the neighborhood just fine. He was running a backhoe and clearing the building site. He had already installed the first structure on the property: A swing-set. For his grandkids.

He also mentioned that his mother-in-law lives with him and his wife and she loves to look out the window and see wildlife.

Iodine testing for ripeness

A short video clip of a women testing Golden Russet apples for ripeness. She is going to make cider so she wants them riper than if she was storing them. I port you into the video just before she sprays the cut apple halves with diluted iodine solution and lets them "develop". 

Your Brains

 

Your brains after the Communists take control

California

Presented without comment

 

Lifting notes 8/14/2026

Today was a lifting day.

I got to the gym and started my maintenance routine.

Just for yucks, I set up my phone to record video just before my third set at 205 pounds. It was mostly blocked by the plates on the end of the bar but that kind of thing happens on the first attempt.

After the set, I looked down and saw blood seeping down my shin into my sock. 

I had made the tiniest change to how I was lifting. I moved where I was gripping the bar about 1-1/2" (40mm)  farther from the centerline with both my right and left hand. I had widened my stance to match.

That resulted in the knurled part of the bar gliding up the front of my lower-legs rather than the smooth part of the bar. I already had some scuff-marks on my left leg and the knurling was enough to strip off the scab.

I ended my lifting session a little bit short. Instead of four sets at 205, I stopped after three sets. I sopped up the leakage dribbling down the front of my shin and soaking into my sock and double-washed the bar with the quaternary ammonium impregnated wet-wipes the gym provides. Not that I have any communicable diseases, but the other gym goers cannot know that. 

I really like how the slightly wider stance feels. I will be wearing compression socks in the future to protect my shins.

Nuns and dementia and exceeding expectations

In 1986, a large, longitudinal study was started where approximately 700 Roman Catholic nuns were tracked as they aged. Convents are considered prime research subjects because many of the confounding variables that complicate these kinds of studies (like drinking, smoking, irregular sleep, diet, poor preventative care) are very muted. 

The convent archives were "mined" for prior histories, including samples of the nun's journals and early writing (to provide baseline cognitive ability assessments).

The nuns consented to having autopsies done after they died.

One of the nuns was 101 years-old when she died. She remained "as sharp as a tack" right up until the day she died. Her autopsy revealed that her brain was a total wreck of amyloid plaques and tangles. It was a junk-yard of neural tissue. By all conventional understandings of dementia, she should have been a drooling vegetable. 

And she was not the only one. Many of the nuns grossly exceeded expectations physicians would have predicted if they only looked at biopsies of their brain tissue.

One of the questions Mrs ERJ's friend asked was "What kinds of prescription drugs were they taking?".

Darned good question! I wish I had an answer. My impression is that most of those nuns were able to avoid many of the life-style induced, chronic conditions that result in rest-of-your-lifetime statin, metformin, diuretics, SSRI type prescriptions.