I love the smell of coffee in the morning

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I love the smell of coffee in the morning. I made this pot just a few minutes ago. Ground the beans myself. I can't image my morning routine without coffee.

So the weather outside has been quite shitty. You know I have an intense dislike1 of winter. It's so cold, and dark, and damp, and gray. Pure misery. It feels like death. What’s there to like? Snow? We have not had much, thank goodness. I can get to work on time and I’m not sore from shoveling the driveway. The doc says my vitamin D levels are extremely low. I've been popping vitamin D pills. I guess my body really needs some sunlight. Soon.

You know, I started the new year with a bunch of intentions which I very publicly posted on my website. Did you read them? Yeah, I’m supposed to start exercising. No, I haven’t started yet. Not really.

I started doing ten-minute power walks from my office building to the Marshalls on the other corner of the mall. I get thirsty around 2 P.M. and the Marshalls sells Diet Coke. What? Sure I drink too much diet soda. It’s better than the Red Bull I used to drink, though.

So why haven’t I started putting some real effort into exercise? Well, my excuse is I have Type 1 diabetes. That has made exercise challenging. I get hypoglycemic whenever I exercise. Heck, one time during that ten minute walk my blood glucose dropped from 150 to 75. And it kept dropping even when I sat down to work. I hate having to suck down glucose gels. The artificial flavors are so bad. I researched it and it seems exercise is a problem for people with T1D.

I looked for personal trainers with experience with T1D and then I spoke to my endo and I had quite a bit of “paralysis of analysis”. I made excuses. So there!

But I talked to my wife and my endo about my fear of hypoglycemia and we have agreed that I’ll shop for an exercise bike and just start. We’ll see how that goes. I got a month.

I almost deleted my Facebook account last week. It seems POTUS and most of the country are still on the campaign trail. The divisiveness, rhetoric and general disdain for listening to each other have overcome civil discourse. It seems we are hurting so much we can't stand each other. The bitterness has started to affect my soul. I have resolved to reduce my exposure to social media and the news. But it's hard.

Even though I read mostly tech and photography news, the word Trump still invades my news feed. This week, I created a news feed action to search or keyword "Trump" and remove articles from my feed. I don't want to see it anymore. Last week, POTUS tried to remove some of us from the country and prevent some of us from returning. He's after the Muslims now but I'm worried that he'll soon turn to scapegoating other immigrants.

I researched the definition of narcissism. POTUS has it bad. Bad as in "he's one tirade away from starting World War III". I'm scared. There are ways to beat a narcissist but I don't think anyone is trying.

I am participating in two blogging challenges, one weekly and one monthly. I am really enjoying these. The weekly photo challenge is helping me get through the dullness of winter. I have been outside more during the weekend and exploring my neighborhood in unique ways. My wife has joined me on my expeditions and we are enjoying spending time together. That’s a good thing. In a few years, the kids will be gone and it'll just be the two of us.

Our son, Shaan, is off to college this fall. He’s applied to Williams College, Amherst College, Haverford College, Princeton University, Drew University, and Rutgers University. He’s already received an acceptance letter from Rutgers. That was his safety school. He’s hoping to attend Williams College. I am hoping we find a way to pay for it.

Oh, shoots! Look at the time! The coffee has gone cold and I need to get some chores done. I enjoyed this. Thanks for coming over. Let's do this again, soon.


  1. “have an intense dislike of” is my way of avoiding the word hate. 

Cortado

A cortado is an espresso drink that’s somewhere between a macchiato and a cappuccino. It’s about half express and half milk which makes the flavour bold but small and easy to drink quickly. The barista’s at Rojo’s Roastery serve this drink in a small shot glass. The glass loses heat quickly, so I had only a few seconds to make these photographs.

With the exception of the espresso itself and the Americano, I think I’ve had every espresso drink on the menu. I’ve had the cappuccino, the macchiato, the latte, and the cortado. I don’t think I have a favourite yet but I’m leaning toward the macchiato.