First ride of 2022

I *finally* took my first bike ride of 2022, now that the nasty winter weather is easing up. This was a great day for it - slightly cool, but nice and sunny. There were only a few patches of ice in the shady spots on the trails, and they were easy to avoid. Chatfield Lake had some nice sun reflection sparkles on its rippling surface.

Here's a different angle on the South Denver Cardiology building, where I was on Thursday, for a scan that turned out well. I'd much rather be seeing it from here on the Highline Canal Trail during a bike ride.

No Statins for me!

I’ve been here, to South Denver Cardiology, so many times with Kristan… and I’ve walked past this building so many times on my dog walks around South Park… but it’s the first time I’m here for myself. I got a precautionary scan for calcium in my arteries and heart, because the simple ASCVD analysis, that they do with my annual physical, again recommended I start on statins, and who wants that? 

I liked the nice clean lab layout

The overseers (lab techs) in their separate control room

The body of the scanner. It was so tall, and I was so close, that I had to take two pictures and merge them together. The StitchPics app didn’t do a very good job.

The core of the scanner, where they slide me in. It was nice, that there was no noise associated with this non-magnetic scanner. And also no need to disrobe, to avoid getting burned by any metal in my pockets, on my wrist, or my glasses. 

Instructions for interpreting the result

My results - zero plaque present - woo hoo! Thanks mom and dad, for the good genes, that appear to allow me to process cholesterol efficiently. No statins for me… I hope…

Snow-covered deer

I loved seeing these now-frosted deer in our back yard this morning, as I was taking Mandy out. We've been seeing groups of deer out back more often this year, sometimes a small group like this, and one time there were around a dozen of them, munching on the grass.

Sounding Spring-ish

It’s starting to look and feel sound a little like Spring in Littleton! Today’s high temperature is supposed to be 66°F, which I expect will feel like a heat wave, after the last week of single-digit lows, and highs below freezing. This was my view this morning when I took Mandy out. I was probably a day or two premature with wearing shorts, as it was only up to the high 30’s, when we headed out to pick up our breakfast. Brr! One of these days, I'm hoping to get back on my bike and hit the trails, but I'm reminded every time we drive to pick up our takeout breakfast, that there are still many large expanses of ice to be found on the road, albeit mostly in the shadows, and there are plenty of shadows on the trails.

Isaac Asimov Quotes

I really enjoyed reading so much science fiction when I was in my teens. There are a lot of things I've forgotten over the years, but I do remember that Isaac Asimov was one of my favorite authors. After recently reading one of his quotes, "When stupidity is considered patriotism, it is unsafe to be intelligent", I went looking for more, and thought it might be fun to share these from medium.com:

• 
  Maybe happiness is this: not feeling like you should be elsewhere, doing something else, being someone else. 
• People think of education as something that they can finish. 
• To succeed, planning alone is insufficient. One must improvise as well. 
• There are no nations! There is only humanity. And if we don’t come to understand that right soon, there will be no nations, because there will be no humanity.
  
• Above all things, never think that you’re not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. 
• My belief is that in life people will take you at your own reckoning. 
• A subtle thought that is in error may yet give rise to fruitful inquiry that can establish truths of great value. 
• It has been my philosophy of life that difficulties vanish when faced boldly. 
• People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do. 
• Humanity has the stars in its future, and that future is too important to be lost under the burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition. 
• The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom. 
• Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. 
• All you have to do is take a close look at yourself and you will understand everyone else. 
• When stupidity is considered patriotism, it is unsafe to be intelligent. 
• The easiest way to solve a problem is to deny it exists. 
• Man’s greatest asset is the unsettled mind. 
• In life, unlike chess, the game continues after checkmate. 
• Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won’t come in. 
• Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It’s the transition that’s troublesome. 
• Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what’s right. 
• The day you stop learning is the day you begin decaying. 
• Science-fiction writers foresee the inevitable, and although problems and catastrophes may be inevitable, solutions are not. 
• If you have talent, you will receive some measure of success – but only if you persist. 
• Uncertainty that comes from knowledge (knowing what you don’t know) is different from uncertainty coming from ignorance. 
• Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is. 
• The only function of a school is to make self-education easier; failing that, it does nothing. 
• Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.