‘Obviously A Major Malfunction’: 28 years ago today. 20140128

[Cleo]

I remember living in Miami and looking to the sky to see if I could see the smoke trails from the Space Shuttle as it launched. I could just barely make them out but knew something had gone wrong so went to my car and turned on the radio. Not a good day for NASA at all.

Just a day of work planned. Woke up at 4:30 to go to the gym, said fuck it and went back to sleep. Will probably take advantage of this beautiful weather we are having and go for a bike ride later this afternoon.

[ArtWilliams]

Good morning.

I remember where I was when the shuttle exploded -- at work on my first real, full time accounting job. The mail room clerk came in to the department and told us what happened.

Finishing up some work today with exercise planned for the late afternoon.

Cheers!

[jason@verotel]

My brother was born just seconds after the shuttle exploded. I was only 6 at the time but I remember this on the news while I was with my Dad in the waiting room.

[Greenguy]

Morning!

I too remember where I was when the shuttle exploded: my buddy & I skipped school & were partaking in a little at his house, then his parents weren't home. I remember thinking I was watching a movie.

Today is also the 37th anniversary of Blizzard of 77

That morning observers on the 16th floor of the M&T Bank Building in Buffalo watched as a gray wall covered the city; it appeared white as it came closer. A blast of wind hit the building that caused the floor to move and the glass window to creak, and then the wall of white enveloped the building. It was 11:10 am...

The total snowfall for the storm was only 12 inches (30 cm). The blizzard was made unique by the sustained winds, gusting up to 69 mph (111 km/h), which picked up the snowdrifts piled on the frozen Lake Erie and dumped that snow load in western New York and southern Ontario. The winds were accompanied by Arctic-cold temperatures, making it feel like −60 °F (−51 °C) outside Whiteout conditions had trapped people at work, in cars and in homes; some had to stay for a day, while others had to stay for the storm's duration. At the Buffalo zoo, 8 ft (2.4 m) drifts allowed three reindeer to walk over their fence and wander about the city...

I can vividly remember being trapped in our house & my Dad being stuck at work for 2 or 3 days. After it stopped & I was allowed to go outside & play, I walked up a massive snowdrift & then stepped from it onto the top of my neighbor's garage!

Speaking of weather, my current temp is

I'm not leaving the house

[ArtWilliams]

Originally Posted by Greenguy

Speaking of weather, my current temp is

I'm not leaving the house

Here in Toronto it's -18 C / 0 F with a wind chill of -32 C / -26 F. Fuck!

[Cleo]

Have I mentioned just how beautiful our weather has been the last few days?

[Simon]

Good morning world

Originally Posted by Cleo

I remember living in Miami and looking to the sky to see if I could see the smoke trails from the Space Shuttle as it launched. I could just barely make them out but knew something had gone wrong so went to my car and turned on the radio. Not a good day for NASA at all.

Back in 1986 I was living in Manhattan and heard the news from tv in the other room as I was working in my home office. Bad day for sure. I've looked closely at all O-rings ever since.

And exactly nine years earlier I had a lot of fun in the snow when I visited Buffalo just in time for the Blizzard of 1977. I've never seen that much snow happen that fast ever again.

The last few days I've been having another kind of fun time. Manually cleaning a mailing list of all the addresses which should have been removed due to bouncing but which were being kept on because the receiving mail servers were sending back "try again later" messages when they should have been sending "never try this one again" messages.

Quick update on the first 5 weeks of using my custom-built standup desk (mentioned here), I'd going to say that I like working standing up most of the time. The first 2-3 weeks were rough since my feet and legs were used to taking it easy when I sat down all day. But eventually they came around and I was able to stand for longer periods of time without having to sit for awhile. I still do alternate between sitting and standing, but now I'm not sitting down because I have to sit down.
|idea|
One more note about working standing up. Since I work at home I always got up and walked around a lot during the day, just to take care of everything home-related that I can't do seated at my desk. Or at least I thought I did. Now that I'm already on my feet I find I walk away from the desk more to do more things at the moment instead of putting them off to do later "when I get up from my desk."
|pig|
Biggest take away so far -- One reason I tried this was that my weight had crept up to 240 and I was not going to let it go one pound higher. I have not changed my diet at all or added other exercises, and I only use my treadmill as much as I was before I started working standing up. Today my weight is down to 227 and I credit a lot of that loss to being on my feet a lot more every day.

(btw ... I just sprinkled some emoticons in there to break up the long text)

|bigsmile|

...added my weekly forecast below as more reason for big smile.

[Ramster]

Good morning

No idea where I was in 1986 when this happened, I think that was the year I was in Boston, ah yes it was, then Washington and then I moved back to Canada just before valentines and my 20th birthday. Spent 5 months in the US back then. Those were the days of sleeping on the floor in a small apartment with 4 other people also sharing floor space LOL

[JustRobert]

Good Day
Just a bunch of work planned waiting for the dealer to tell me how much more it's going to cost to get my car back. Warranty ends next month so I need them to find anything wrong now because we've decided not to spend the four grand to extend it further.

[SheepGuy]

I was just getting in to work at a TV store and the place was packed with people, I thought they were customers at first.

[LeRoy]

I vividly remember this day way back when! I was in the 9th grade and my woodshop teacher brought the TV in the classroom. Watching the news was so surreal.

[Greenguy]

Originally Posted by Simon

Quick update on the first 5 weeks of using my custom-built standup desk (mentioned here), I'd going to say that I like working standing up most of the time. The first 2-3 weeks were rough since my feet and legs were used to taking it easy when I sat down all day. But eventually they came around and I was able to stand for longer periods of time without having to sit for awhile. I still do alternate between sitting and standing, but now I'm not sitting down because I have to sit down.

I HAVE A QUESTION!
Do your forearms rest on anything when you type? I ask because it's always been advised to me - both by my primary & my chiropractor - that your arms should rest on something when you're typing. Mine rest on the arms of my chair - and so far so good <knock on wood>

Originally Posted by JustRobert

Good Day
Just a bunch of work planned waiting for the dealer to tell me how much more it's going to cost to get my car back. Warranty ends next month so I need them to find anything wrong now because we've decided not to spend the four grand to extend it further.

Your dealer takes collateral?! DAMN! Mine always wants up front!

[Cleo]

I know from using the Fitbit app on my iPhone that walking is one of the best exercises.

[ArtWilliams]

Not a single one of us said "I was too young to remember" or or "I wasn't born yet". We're a bunch of old farts!

[Simon]

Originally Posted by artwilliams

Not a single one of us said "I was too young to remember" or or "I wasn't born yet". We're a bunch of old farts!

Yep, guilty as charged. Hell, I was in kindergarten when brave (crazy) men were still going into space as the payload of a missile.


On May 5, 1961, NASA Astronaut Alan Shepard piloted his Freedom 7 Mercury capsule in a 15-minute sub-
orbital flight, becoming the first American in space. The flight carried him to an altitude of 116 statute miles.

When I was a kid I believed we'd have settlements on the moon and on Mars by now. Unfortunately we've been far too busy wasting the funding that would have required by fighting amongst ourselves without pause.

Stupid earthlings.

[Cleo]

Originally Posted by Simon

Yep, guilty as charged. Hell, I was in kindergarten when brave (crazy) men were still going into space as the payload of a missile.


On May 5, 1961, NASA Astronaut Alan Shepard piloted his Freedom 7 Mercury capsule in a 15-minute sub-
orbital flight, becoming the first American in space. The flight carried him to an altitude of 116 statute miles.

When I was a kid I believed we'd have settlements on the moon and on Mars by now. Unfortunately we've been far too busy wasting the funding that would have required by fighting amongst ourselves without pause.

Stupid earthlings.

Ditto

[Simon]

Originally Posted by Greenguy

I HAVE A QUESTION!
Do your forearms rest on anything when you type? I ask because it's always been advised to me - both by my primary & my chiropractor - that your arms should rest on something when you're typing. Mine rest on the arms of my chair - and so far so good <knock on wood>

I CAN ANSWER THAT QUESTION!
Actually that was one of the reasons I made some of the changes I mentioned to the "custom design" I'm using. You can see what I mean in these pics...



On the left is version 1.0 from when I first threw something together to give this a test. In that version there was absolutely no support for my hands, palms or forearms. And you're right, that's not good.

On the right you can see how it's configured today. I spun the old roll-around desk so the other side was facing me. Then I put a big empty box on the main desk surface, which serves to raise the keyboard and mouse surface so it's just below the height of my elbows when I'm standing there. Monitor is still on a stack of thin art books (added two more to raise it a little). Notebook sits on another box.

Now regarding the support for my arms, I do tend to rest my forearms on the surface to the left and right of the keyboard if I'm just reading. When typing, the keyboard is at the back edge of the surface and the palms of my hands rest on the surface, very much like how they do when I'm using my notebook on the couch

When I sat down most of the day, my arms were always fully-supported by the top of my desk. They rarely did more than reach a few inches to get something, or did very little as I typed. Now that I'm standing up most of the day, I find that my arms are in motion a lot more. Rarely do they get to just rest on a desk doing nothing.

If this keeps up (weight loss, feeling better in general), I'll be looking into a more permanent version. But this modular "boxes and books" approach let's me get the specs down so I can order or have made exactly works best for me.

Any other questions, just shout through your megaphone.

[ArtWilliams]

Originally Posted by Simon

Yep, guilty as charged. Hell, I was in kindergarten when brave (crazy) men were still going into space as the payload of a missile.


On May 5, 1961, NASA Astronaut Alan Shepard piloted his Freedom 7 Mercury capsule in a 15-minute sub-
orbital flight, becoming the first American in space. The flight carried him to an altitude of 116 statute miles.

Sorry, I don't remember that. I wasn't born until September of 1961!

[jason@verotel]

Originally Posted by Simon

I see one problem with your photos... On v1.0 I see a place for what appears to be coffee. On v1.5/2.0 I see no room for said coffee...? To me this seems like a flawed design. Please correct me if I am wrong. Perhaps the camera angle is not showing a newly added cup holder?

[Greenguy]

Originally Posted by Simon

I CAN ANSWER THAT QUESTION!

BASED ON YOUR REPLY, NO, YOU CAN'T

As I type this, both of my elbows are resting on the arms of my chair Same goes for when I'm using my mouse

YOU ---><---ME

And no, I have NO FUCKING IDEA why I'm so angry at you about this!

[Cleo]

Simon -->

Greenie --> |pig|

[Greenguy]

THAT'S NOT AT ALL NICE!!!!
(truthful, but not nice)

[Simon]

Originally Posted by jason@verotel

I see one problem with your photos... On v1.0 I see a place for what appears to be coffee. On v1.5/2.0 I see no room for said coffee...? To me this seems like a flawed design. Please correct me if I am wrong. Perhaps the camera angle is not showing a newly added cup holder?

Nice catch.Well, it's only maybe v1.3.2 so far, but you're right about the camera angle. There's about a 9 inch height difference between the keyboard/mouse surface and the monitor riser portion of the original desk. There's a part of that riser surface that's now used for a coffee mug and a few other things, as you can see in this other camera angle.

Originally Posted by Greenguy

BASED ON YOUR REPLY, NO, YOU CAN'T
As I type this, both of my elbows are resting on the arms of my chair Same goes for when I'm using my mouse

Well...your original question was:

Originally Posted by Greenguy

Do your forearms rest on anything when you type?

I'm not sure when the elbows arrived, but hello, welcome, have a seat, we're just finishing up a talk about forearms and such.

Now I did say that only my palms rest on anything when I type, and I did say that my forearms only rest on something when I'm just reading things. I guess I could apologize for not finishing the deductive path for you, but...

Originally Posted by Greenguy

And no, I have NO FUCKING IDEA why I'm so angry at you about this!

Me neither...and to you too.

[Cleo]

Originally Posted by Greenguy

THAT'S NOT AT ALL NICE!!!!
(truthful, but not nice)

[Cleo]

Personally (has a lot to do with my ongoing leg issues) I would love to design a recumbent bike computer desk.

This one also generates power for your computer.