Have we have devolved technologically?

Significantly?

I’ve a base-model Apple Watch Series 3. Its primary function is to just tell the current time. Occasionally, register a heart rate. But for some inexplicable reason, it require a reboot every few days or weeks.

Each reboot will need about five minutes.

It’s almost like I have an ultra-lightweight, ultra-power-efficient, legacy Windows server strapped to my wrist.

What’s worse, is that I can’t use Scheduled Tasks or a cron job to just do a reboot once per week at 1AM or something.

So, yeah, I’m a bit annoyed — it might become a fixture in the “Some of the tech items I once had” drawer.

Replaced the front pads and front shocks on UPGRAYEDD today. 100℉ in the sun.

I did the rear shocks about five years ago during the RV-Life tour around the country. The rear shocks are simplistic enough to replace and only need about ten minutes… no need for a jack, either.

1. Sit under the rear end.
2. Loosen four pinch-bolts.
3. Inflate the towing springs.
4. Shocks effectively drop out.
5. Reassembly is the reverse of removal.

Front end is a bit more drawn out.

Jack up one side. Add a jack-stand (two, because I’m working on sandy-soil).

Reposition the jack to lift the hub enough to extract the pinch-bolt.

Fiddle with the top end of the shock to remove its lock-nut.

And, hey, while you’re in there, go ahead and check the brake wear — do the front pads as well. Torque the caliper slide and bracket bolts.

Did I mention that it was in the sun? And 100℉?

Would’ve been a quick project, if I had a paved, covered area to work in.

Ah, it takes me back to the days when I had to overhaul the top end of an I-4 at an interstate rest stop in Kansas… in the summertime. At least Ellsworth, Kansas offered a bit of shade… and was paved.

**sigh**

Based on the amount of wear of the pads and rotors and in the typical driving I do, the existing rotors will likely last the rest of my lifetime. The new pads might as well.

I’d give my left two lug-nuts for an indoor shop (…between 55℉ and 85℉… with a paved floor… with shade… with no wind… and a vehicle lift) to expedite vehicle maintenance.

I’ll do the rear pads tomorrow and see about inspecting the parking brakes.

<rant>
    <babble>

Feels like really (really) bad tendonitis in my elbows and wrists. Strangely (to me) it feels similar to the painfully-bad reaction that I once had to Cirpo back in mid-2008. The Ciprofloxin regimen cleared the infection, but the tendons in my knees were extraordinarily painful just a day or two after I began the course. Had trouble standing and walking.

We found a few weeks later that the FDA issued a warning on the matter.

Well, that would explain the tendonitis that began without any change in physical exertion or activity.

And now **mumble-mumble**-years later, I seem to have some nearly disabling pain in my freaking arms — no change in physical exertion or activity. Is it possible that the nearly-debilitating tendonitis in my arms began just a few days after I had received the second dose of the Moderna Covid vaccine?

Certainly a curiosity.

Also, please don’t take this as some justification to forego any vaccines for whatever fabricated claims you may have — the side effects of any vaccine are far more agreeable than the illness it’s vaccinating against. If some illness can be blocked or mitigated through a vaccine, then effing sign me up. I have happily taken, and will continue to queue up and bear a shoulder or other appropriate muscular group to absorb any vaccine to mitigate illnesses because science:

• Hepatitis B
• Rotavirus
• Diphtheria
• Tetanus
• Pertussis
• Poliovirus
• Measles
• Mumps
• Rubella
• Varicella
• Hep. A
• Influenza*
• Tuberculosis
• Smallpox**
• Typhoid***
• Yellow Fever

I’m sure I’m overdue for a few boosters of some of those: DTaP comes to mind — or maybe they call it TDaP now. I dunno ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

—

*This mutates quickly and there are many different kinds of influenza. Immunologists make very educated guesses/predictions about which of its several variants is going to be most prevalent. Typically, you’ll need an influenza vaccination every year. I haven’t had one in a few years and am clearly overdue.

**I’ve had three Smallpox vaccines over the years. Yes, they stopped administering them en masse back in the early 1970s. But my first smallpox vaccine was when I was a child in 1976 perhaps, probably because they were concerned that I was immunocompromised. The second in 1989 when I joined the Army, because every trainee received it (along with several other vaccines). I had no reaction. The third time because the Army said, “Oh, no reaction? You must not have got a good stick… hold still…” Oh, look… no reaction that time either… a modern mystery that is. This also underscores that vaccines seem to work quite effectively, especially for viruses that are not prone to mutating.

***Typhoid isn’t a virus, per se, but a bacteria, Salmonella typhi. I no longer travel to locations where Typhoid is recurrent, plus it only has about a two-year effectiveness.

    </babble>
</rant>

—

Edit: Interesting: Table 3, Arthralgia, Dose 2, Grade 3.

It took longer (156 years) for the US government to recognize and mark Juneteenth as a holiday than it took for Texas (two years) to acknowledge the emancipation of a people.

I don’t know whether to be pleased that it’s now, finally, officially recognized… or further saddened and insulted that it took a century and a half to do so.

So, permit me to say:

It’s about fucking time.