Lost the Plot, Getting It Back

QuadraphonicQuad

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UPDATE: As of right now, my treatment injections are over! Monitoring PSA every 90 days now as I gradually revert to normal (?!?) over the next few months. I got the news yesterday and started celebrating big time immediately which is why I'm rather subdued today. Whew. :rocks
So many people saying CONGRATULATIONS and now you can add one more! And certainly I foresee the best for both you & the Quadfather! Oh, it takes a while for those Lupron shots to wear off. For a 90 day inj it took me about 60 days to get rid off it.

Last time I posted here I was getting ready for my 7 yr PSA test. Yatta! Still clean & I haven't had any need for Lupron since pre-surgery.

Life is good.
 
So many people saying CONGRATULATIONS and now you can add one more! And certainly I foresee the best for both you & the Quadfather! Oh, it takes a while for those Lupron shots to wear off. For a 90 day inj it took me about 60 days to get rid off it.

Last time I posted here I was getting ready for my 7 yr PSA test. Yatta! Still clean & I haven't had any need for Lupron since pre-surgery.

Life is good.
Sweet!
 
So many people saying CONGRATULATIONS and now you can add one more! And certainly I foresee the best for both you & the Quadfather! Oh, it takes a while for those Lupron shots to wear off. For a 90 day inj it took me about 60 days to get rid off it.

Last time I posted here I was getting ready for my 7 yr PSA test. Yatta! Still clean & I haven't had any need for Lupron since pre-surgery.

Life is good.
I’m very glad to hear this as I was expecting it to take 6 to 12 months to normalize. Thx!
 
Greetings to all, it's been over 90 days and well past time for a dispatch of confessions and such. Before that just a few points; yes, my last treatment was Oct 2019, so I'm about 7 months to the good, postponed checkup is this week. My wife and I have been working from home, but that's normal for us so we're very fortunate in that regard. I have no work travel for now so I *should* have more time but it's only a little better in that regard. I'll save that for my session which is starting now....

SHRINK: "Come in and sit down. Weren't you supposed to be here about six weeks ago?"
TMcD: "Probably; time has become elastic."
SHRINK: "I see. [adjusts my balance due in his head] We're going to more quickly today since I squeezed you in. Let's start with your obsessions, do you feel you're making progress?"
TMcD: "Oh yes. After buying 400 CDs, well I actually lost count; maybe closer to 500; anyhow, my physical disc collection and iTunes library is now just about right."
SHRINK: "I'll never understand musicians and audiophiles; you don't think that's excessive?"
TMcD: "Truthfully, I didn't think I'd need that many but once I got started it was fun. At the same time it was a nod to potential OCD and of course, assuage the guilt."
SHRINK: Guilt? Now we're getting somewhere. You say the guilt was actually RELIEVED by the hunting down and purchasing, yet you feel no guilt for actually doing this?"
TMcD: Yeah, I'll explain. You see, I'm better at acquisition than owning; I have constructs of time and activity that prevent me from enjoying all of the media I get. My collection and especially the iTunes library I leverage for the iPad jukebox by the pool or on the plane was a mess. In 2004, my best friend bought two 40GB iPods (micro drive) and gave one to me. Changed my world. I took it upon myself to dump everything I could get into that library, even a lot of digitizing analog sources. Part of the guilt was not owning some of the stuff in my iTunes library and letting that library get very messy. It was like kudzu, that stuff that grows all over everything. Then two bad things happened."
SHRINK: "So you felt better about now owning the content you had borrowed earlier. What are the bad things?"
TMcD: Well [sheepishly], it started when I was listening to In The Court Of The Crimson King and the cymbals just didn't sound right at all! I realized what was wrong and it would effect the whole library. I had used the 128kbps rate to import everything and now that I was paying attention to the music this wasn't going to be sufficient. So I did some at 192, 256 and finally settled on 320kbps. So I set about converting everything I physically had on hand to the 320 rate."
SHRINK: "Ah so even though I know nothing about fidelity but pretty good fielding emotions, I think I see where this all ended up. How many songs were in the iTunes library when everything reached a fever pitch?"
TMcD: "I was just shy of 55,000 songs when I really stopped to think about what I had and how much I hadn't even heard yet. I had to do something so I started obsessing on the collection about six months ago. First I found out that there can be a number of duplicates hiding in the woodpile because you're at the mercy of humans creating the listings that are interpreted from the disc data. This includes spelling, punctuation, spaces, fields that should be filled, others that should be blank, taking a single album and splitting it into an album for each guest artist. Once I figured out how to spot that stuff it got better."
SHRINK: "So you're adding music and deleting music at the same time? How is that working out?"
TMcD: "Yes that is correct; adding some first time music while casting some off. I'm down to 49,000 songs now. This going in both directions at the same time seems to be a theme in my life."
SHRINK: "Please explain."
TMcD: "Well, take my own music, the stuff I "create" and fool around with mixing and editing. On the one hand I need to be working on new stuff yet I find myself playing custodian to my past recordings. Another example is that as I find myself devaluing what I've done and what talents I have, I also find that I want to make an album. It's just the realization that I manage to stitch a few ideas together and it thrills me for a little while. I'm not really a skilled musician, so I get excited at little things going right. Then I hear something truly wonderful that someone came up with, yet I cannot conceive how it is being written, arranged and played. This in turn diminishes my aims and confidence. But now I want to make a record!"
SHRINK: "I may have to introduce a punch card program where every 6th session is free. You really need some work."
TMcD: "I don't think so doc; I've been coming to these conclusions and recognizing my need to change by myself and merely checking in with you about it. And there's one more thing I've figured out all by myself."
SHRINK: "And what would that be?"
TMcD: "That these are all silly first world problems and they don't matter as much as I originally thought. This points me back to the real world where I can now see I've got a handle on all this after all. Checkmate."
SHRINK: "You can let yourself out."

Yes. Yes I can.
 
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Greetings to all, it's been over 90 days and well past time for a dispatch of confessions and such. Before that just a few points; yes, my last treatment was Oct 2019, so I'm about 7 months to the good, postponed checkup is this week. My wife and I have been working from home, but that's normal for us so we're very fortunate in that regard. I have no work travel for now so I *should* have more time but it's only a little better in that regard. I'll save that for my session which is starting now....

SHRINK: "Come in and sit down. Weren't you supposed to be here about six weeks ago?"
TMcD: "Probably; time has become elastic."
SHRINK: "I see. [adjusts my balance due in his head] We're going to more quickly today since I squeezed you in. Let's start with your obsessions, do you feel you're making progress?"
TMcD: "Oh yes. After buying 400 CDs, well I actually lost count; maybe closer to 500; anyhow, my physical disc collection and iTunes library is now just about right."
SHRINK: "I'll never understand musicians and audiophiles; you don't think that's excessive?"
TMcD: "Truthfully, I didn't think I'd need that many but once I got started it was fun. At the same time it was a nod to potential OCD and of course, assuage the guilt."
SHRINK: Guilt? Now we're getting somewhere. You say the guilt was actually RELIEVED by the hunting down and purchasing, yet you feel no guilt for actually doing this?"
TMcD: Yeah, I'll explain. You see, I'm better at acquisition than owning; I have constructs of time and activity that prevent me from enjoying all of the media I get. My collection and especially the iTunes library I leverage for the iPad jukebox by the pool or on the plane was a mess. In 2004, my best friend bought two 40GB iPods (micro drive) and gave one to me. Changed my world. I took it upon myself to dump everything I could get into that library, even a lot of digitizing analog sources. Part of the guilt was not owning some of the stuff in my iTunes library and letting that library get very messy. It was like kudzu, that stuff that grows all over everything. Then two bad things happened."
SHRINK: "So you felt better about now owning the content you had borrowed earlier. What are the bad things?"
TMcD: Well [sheepishly], it started when I was listening to In The Court Of The Crimson King and the cymbals just didn't sound right at all! I realized what was wrong and it would effect the whole library. I had used the 128kbps rate to import everything and now that I was paying attention to the music this wasn't going to be sufficient. So I did some at 192, 256 and finally settled on 320kbps. So I set about converting everything I physically had on hand to the 320 rate."
SHRINK: "Ah so even though I know nothing about fidelity but pretty good fielding emotions, I think I see where this all ended up. How many songs were in the iTunes library when everything reached a fever pitch?"
TMcD: "I was just shy of 55,000 songs when I really stopped to think about what I had and how much I hadn't even heard yet. I had to do something so I started obsessing on the collection about six months ago. First I found out that there can be a number of duplicates hiding in the woodpile because you're at the mercy of humans creating the listings that are interpreted from the disc data. This includes spelling, punctuation, spaces, fields that should be filled, others that should be blank, taking a single album and splitting it into an album for each guest artist. Once I figured out how to spot that stuff it got better."
SHRINK: "So you're adding music and deleting music at the same time? How is that working out?"
TMcD: "Yes that is correct; adding some first time music while casting some off. I'm down to 49,000 songs now. This going in both directions at the same time seems to be a theme in my life."
SHRINK: "Please explain."
TMcD: "Well, take my own music, the stuff I "create" and fool around with mixing and editing. On the one hand I need to be working on new stuff yet I find myself playing custodian to my past recordings. Another example is that as I find myself devaluing what I've done and what talents I have, I also find that I want to make an album. It's just the realization that I manage to stitch a few ideas together and it thrills me for a little while. I'm not really a skilled musician, so I get excited at little things going right. Then I hear something truly wonderful that someone came up with, yet I cannot conceive how it is being played. This in turn diminishes my aims and confidence. But now I want to make a record!"
SHRINK: "I may have to introduce a punch card program where every 6th session is free. You really need some work."
TMcD: "I don't think so doc; I've been coming to these conclusions and recognizing my need to change by myself and merely checking in with you about it. And there's one more thing I've figured out all by myself."
SHRINK: "And what would that be?"
TMcD: "That these are all silly first world problems and they don't matter as much as I originally thought. This points me back to the real world where I can now see I've got a handle on all this after all. Checkmate."
SHRINK: "You can let yourself out."

Yes. Yes I can.

Brilliant!!!
 
NEWS BYTES: Fired the shrink; calling my own shots. Good appointment with my urologist today; I usually get his bad lieutenant (Dr. Jerry is still a nice guy). Blood work results tomorrow, should be good. conquered the Oppo BDP103>ISO>FLAC riddle by switching computers whereby it worked within minutes. I'm reasonably tech savvy, but this goal had eluded me for months! Energy and attention improving to catch up on so many things. A friend mentioned watching Grace Around The World a few days ago. I had to explain that I am a huge Jeff Buckley fan and own as much as I know about including the VHS EPK (electronic press kit) and the Garbage Can Tapes CD. So I pulled out the Jeff Buckley DVD set and played the concert disc Saturday and the biography DVD Sunday morning. Instead of blowing off the suggestion I acted! We watched a couple movies on the DVR (Along Came A Spider and later Sin City) over the weekend and enjoyed them a lot. I must say I like this "raiding my collection" trend and I'm going to do it a lot more. This must seem so simple to many of you, but it comes down to what you allow or encourage yourself to do. Taking next week off, looking forward to some day trips around our area and more listening / viewing. Good thoughts out to all of you folks.
 
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NEWS BYTES: Fired the shrink; calling my own shots. Good appointment with my urologist today; I usually get his bad lieutenant (Dr. Jerry is still a nice guy). Blood work results tomorrow, should be good. conquered the Oppo BDP103>ISO>FLAC riddle by switching computers whereby it worked within minutes. I'm reasonably tech savvy, but this goal had eluded me for months!
I cringe when this thread gets bumped, but I love it when it's happy news!

It might not be helpful to you, but with the OPPO/ISO thing, you can avoid Java by just running the rip command from the command line (CMD terminal).
I'm faster that way and I hate messing with Java. In case you're comfortable with terminals, just thought I'd throw that out there.
 
NEWS BYTES: Fired the shrink; calling my own shots. Good appointment with my urologist today; I usually get his bad lieutenant (Dr. Jerry is still a nice guy). Blood work results tomorrow, should be good. conquered the Oppo BDP103>ISO>FLAC riddle by switching computers whereby it worked within minutes. I'm reasonably tech savvy, but this goal had eluded me for months! Energy and attention improving to catch up on so many things. A friend mentioned watching Grace Around The World a few days ago. I had to explain that I am a huge Jeff Buckley fan and own as much as I know about including the VHS EPK (electronic press kit) and the Garbage Can Tapes CD. So I pulled out the Jeff Buckley DVD set and played the concert disc Saturday and the biography DVD Sunday morning. Instead of blowing off the suggestion I acted! We watched a couple movies on the DVR (Along Came A Spider and later Sin City) over the weekend and enjoyed them a lot. I must say I like this "raiding my collection" trend and I'm going to so it a lot more. This must seem so simple to many of you, but it comes down to what you allow or encourage yourself to do. Taking next week off, looking forward to some day trips around our area and more listening / viewing. Good thoughts out to all of you folks.
NEWS BYTES: Fired the shrink; calling my own shots. Good appointment with my urologist today; I usually get his bad lieutenant (Dr. Jerry is still a nice guy). Blood work results tomorrow, should be good. conquered the Oppo BDP103>ISO>FLAC riddle by switching computers whereby it worked within minutes. I'm reasonably tech savvy, but this goal had eluded me for months! Energy and attention improving to catch up on so many things. A friend mentioned watching Grace Around The World a few days ago. I had to explain that I am a huge Jeff Buckley fan and own as much as I know about including the VHS EPK (electronic press kit) and the Garbage Can Tapes CD. So I pulled out the Jeff Buckley DVD set and played the concert disc Saturday and the biography DVD Sunday morning. Instead of blowing off the suggestion I acted! We watched a couple movies on the DVR (Along Came A Spider and later Sin City) over the weekend and enjoyed them a lot. I must say I like this "raiding my collection" trend and I'm going to so it a lot more. This must seem so simple to many of you, but it comes down to what you allow or encourage yourself to do. Taking next week off, looking forward to some day trips around our area and more listening / viewing. Good thoughts out to all of you folks.
Blessing's on you & I hope the best for a good PSA test return. I don't need to hope for anything else cuz you're already doing it!
 
All's well - Happy Father's Day to all my fellow fathers out there today, even those who merely had fathers are wished well today as well.

In honor of my friend Billy's consistent reminders for the solstice twice every year (for years!) I have just uploaded one of his songs we used to play back in the day. Don't be afraid to turn it up dads: High Flyin' [tape 15]
 
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