Year: 2020

Nine Months of Ringing

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When the first lock downs in the United States were announced I was returning from a work trip to Montreal. On the flight home I had not felt great but was not worried about Covid-19. The next day I felt a little better and went out for a lunch at a restaurant not knowing it would be the last time I’d have a sit down meal inside of a place for now 9 months.  On Saturday I woke up with what I can only describe as the worst ear pain I have ever experienced. My left ear felt like it was going to explode. Nothing I did relieved the pain and I eventually gave in and went to a ZoomCare clinic because finding an appointment at my primary care physician was not possible. The ZoomCare nurse said “yep, you have an ear infection”, gave me some antibiotic drops and sent me home. At first it seemed like the drops were working but on the second day of using them I noticed fluid coming from my ear and then blood.

I returned to ZoomCare and they put me on stronger antibiotics but also suggested I see my primary care doctor. I gave that doctor a call as I left and while my doctor wasn’t available his nurse practitioner was so I was able to get in. When the nurse practitioner looked at my ear she became very concerned that the infection had moved into the bone in my ear canal. A couple of higher strength antibiotics were given, including an oral one to try and fight the infection internally. They also made an emergency appointment with an ENT (ear, nose, and throat) specialist in case the infection was in the bone.

The scheduling process for the ENT was not easy as Covid had pretty much shut the practice down. The schedulers wanted to make sure that the appointment was absolutely necessary and that I had no symptoms of Covid. Again, I was in excruciating pain, I couldn’t drive because it hurt to move my head certain ways.

My appointment required a Covid test but the visit itself went fine. The ENT was convinced that the infection was not in my bone. He did confirm that my eardrum had burst and applied some thick steroids and antibiotics to the eardrum and kept me on heavy duty antibiotics. He also stated that he thought it would be a quick recovery and that the pain should really start to fade in the next day or two.

Returning home from that appointment felt like relief. There was a plan, some meds, and an optimistic view from the doctor. Sure enough, the pain started to fade away the next day and I started to really feel like I was improving. A week went by and the pain was completely gone but I was still having fluid in my ear so I returned to the ENT (after another Covid test) where I was told that stronger steroids needed to be applied, so that was done. I was also told that my hearing would eventually return and to be patient.

The waiting

After two months of carefully treating my ear I still felt like I could not hear very well still had a constant ringing in my left ear from when all of this started. The ENT wanted me to come in and having a hearing test and to just double check my ear. My hearing test came back with my results essentially being no different than a test that was performed a few years ago. The doctor did notice some scar tissue on my eardrum but did not see any fluid behind it. His explanation for the ringing was that eventually it would fade.

But, here we are 7 months later and my left ear still rings. I still have trouble understanding conversation when there is a lot of background noise or if the conversation is more on my left side. Even small background noises interfere with my ability to fully hear and distinguish words in a conversation. During conversations the ringing is there but is mostly just an annoyance. During silent moments the ringing is distracting and frustrating because it is all I hear.

As a Covid vaccine makes its way around the world I am really hoping it is easier to find a new ENT to get a second opinion. The reduced hearing is my biggest concern with the ringing a close second. I’d like to be able to have a conversation with people without having to adjust my head or hear ringing in the background. That’s all I really want in 2021.

Prepping for the New Year with a New Look

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In early November I hinted about a possible new look for this site and today I clicked the “update” button and took the plunge with a new design. It is a free design from the folks over at Themehaus and while I am still playing with the colors, I love the overall simplicity of the theme while keeping it easily readable. One of the quirks of the previous design was that the font was small and if you were reading on a large screen, the text became hard to read. Since it seems most people read directly on the site and not via RSS I focused on this as the main thing to change.

Hopefully people find this easier to read on their devices. If you would like to see a different set of fonts (ones maybe you find easier on the eyes), feel free to leave a comment with a suggestion.

Water to be Traded on Wall Street as a Commodity

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From Bloomberg:

Water joined gold, oil and other commodities traded on Wall Street, highlighting worries that the life-sustaining natural resource may become scarce across more of the world.

Farmers, hedge funds and municipalities alike are now able to hedge against — or bet on — future water availability in California, the biggest U.S. agriculture market and world’s fifth-largest economy. CME Group Inc.’s January 2021 contract, linked to California’s $1.1 billion spot water market, last traded Monday at 496 index points, equal to $496 per acre-foot.

It seems these futures are tied to the spot price of water rights in California, measured against 10 acre-feet of water (roughly 3.26 million gallons).

To be honest I am not sure how I feel about this. At the end of the article there is a quote from a researcher saying that there is currently no way for people to manage their water supply risk. I think that has the situation sideways, commodity doesn’t help you manage risk, it helps you make decisions based on general risk.

A Single Flight Conundrum

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Between January and March of this year I flew United quite a bit. When Covid travel restrictions hit in mid-March the airlines started changing their requirements to qualify for their statuses for 2021. In most cases the airlines actually extended a frequent flyer’s status into 2021 carte blanche but with some caveats. In United’s case, to earn their upgrade certificates a flyer still needs to spend a certain amount and fly a specific number of flights in 2020. Due to all of my work travel I had no issues meeting the spend amount (Premier Qualifying Points) but I am one flight short of the needed number to earn the upgrade certificates.

With Covid still ravaging the United States I reached out to United Airlines’ frequent flyer support team to inquire about whether there would be exceptions made for people like myself who came very close but didn’t cross the line for next year’s upgrades. The quick response verbatim was:

You must meet the published criteria for awarding of the PlusPoints.

Besides it being a rather terse, somewhat unfriendly e-mail, United is saying all flights must be flown and no exceptions will be made. For me, this means I need to fly that one flight to earn the upgrade certificates for 2021. But is flying that one flight worth it from a safety perspective?

We’ve been pretty good about social distancing and isolation during Covid so it seems irrational to go fly just to earn the upgrades but at the same time, it’s like throwing the upgrades away. The way I would do this would likely be to fly United to San Francisco or Los Angeles (Los Angeles would require a connection) mid-week as the flights are super cheap and then I’d take Alaska Airlines back home since they are still blocking middle seats when possible. I’d wear an N95 mask the entire time and wouldn’t plan on eating or drinking on the flights.

Now I just have to decide if this is too much of a risk or if I am being paranoid. What would you do?

Is United’s additional Thanksgiving capacity irresponsible?

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United will be adding 1,400 flights for the week of Thanksgiving and plans to use larger aircraft on some flights. From that same Bloomberg article –

Half of its Thanksgiving customers are buying tickets less than 30 days before the holiday, up from about 40% last year, United said. The airline will monitor bookings “in real-time to swap in larger aircraft when needed to accommodate last-minute demand.”

It seems a bit tone deaf for United to add all of this capacity for a holiday week. Yes, they need revenue but at the same time they are enabling behavior that will unfortunately lead to more Covid-19 infections. More people in airports, more people on planes (where Covid can and does spread), and people in their loved one’s homes in close contact. This is amid the U.S. setting new daily records when it comes to coronavirus cases.

United is a business and they are looking out for themselves but their disregard for public health in the name of money is a bad idea right now. I would hope that CEO Scott Kirby would take a moment to think about the company’s actions and the impact they will have on lives across the country.

A Refresh Coming?

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I sometimes get bored with the look and feel of this site. I think anyone who runs a website often wonders what a new design would do for the traffic or the placement of the content, so I have been playing with new layouts and fonts and so far I haven’t found anything that really makes me go “wow”. But I do believe a new look is needed. For one, I think a new font would help make long form style posts easier to read. There is also something funky with the way this current theme handles images and resizing and I don’t like it. Moving forward I’d like to be able to feature photography and writing both intertwined and on their own in a cleaner fashion, so look for that in the future. Lastly, I like the idea of link posts for things that I may have a few thoughts on but not enough for a full post. It’s something I don’t know that I will implement as I know people have mixed feelings about such posts but it’s being considered.

What are your thoughts? Anything in particular you would like to see visually different here?

Xi’an Famous Foods Cookbook!!

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One of my absolute favorite places to eat in New York City is Xi’an Famous Foods. The flavors of the western Chinese restaurant make it a “don’t miss” option when visiting the city. You have a mix of Muslim influence and Chinese noodles that blend together to make a meal that is amazing. My favorite dish is the spicy cumin lamb hand ripped noodles in broth. It’s delicious, spicy, and slightly mouth-numbing.

Now I find out that CEO Jason Wang is releasing a cookbook! Xi’an Famous Foods: The Cuisine of Western China, from New York’s Favorite Noodle Shop* will come out next week (October 13, 2020). I am thrilled about the thought of reading through the whole story of the restaurant and getting access to a few previously unpublished recipes.

From Bookshop:

CEO Jason Wang divulges the untold story of how this empire came to be, alongside the never-before-published recipes that helped create this New York City icon. From heavenly ribbons of liang pi doused in a bright vinegar sauce to flatbread filled with caramelized pork to cumin lamb over hand-pulled Biang Biang noodles, this cookbook helps home cooks make the dishes that fans of Xi’an Famous Foods line up for while also exploring the vibrant cuisine and culture of Xi’an.

Needless to say, I’m stoked.

* This is an affiliate link and I will earn a small commission if you buy the book using my link.

Tree from Hell

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Tree of Heaven Growing Next to a House
A tree of heaven growing out of the side of a porch in Portland, OR

I have been fighting an enemy that continually sends in reinforcements and those reinforcements seem to pop up in all kinds of locations that are meant to ambush me. Locations that are hard to reach or they show up even stronger than before, attempting to break my will to fight them. I’m talking of course about the tree of heaven or Ailanthus altissima, or as I like to call it, the tree from hell. Go ahead, read up on this kryptonite of a tree, but if you don’t have time for that, here are some quick, important points about it.

  1. The tree of heaven crowds out native species and secretes a chemical into the soil that is toxic to surrounding plants.
  2. The tree’s aggressive root system can cause damage to pavement, sewers and building foundations.
  3. If the plant has matured, cutting alone will only help temporarily by reducing its ability to spread.
  4. The wood is useless. It is brittle and has no structural value and burns poorly.
  5. The cuttings smell like burning garbage.

Those are just a few of the issues with the tree of heaven. Really, it comes down to how easily it spreads and how quickly it grows. I can rip out the seedlings, getting all of the root, but more plants will show up in a week or so. If I give the plants more than a month, then their roots become established and it’s even harder to get rid of it. There are two full grown tree of heaven next door to our house in the exact disturbed soil that they so much love and they are constantly dropping seeds. On a windy day those seeds get carried all over the neighborhood and we’ll find seedlings growing on our evening walks. Some people let the seedlings grow because it looks like a tree, but they don’t understand that it is invasive. They don’t know that it spreads so fast it’s hard to control. Even in the image at the top of this post, there is another tree growing across the street from the mother tree. It spreads like a disease.

Unfortunately, the city of Portland has been somewhat reluctant to take fast action against the tree and they are popping up everywhere. Part of the issue is that the city says it’s a “nuisance” tree not “invasive”, even though a post on their website calls it invasive. Since the tree is a nuisance, it requires a paid permit to remove. This should be a case where the city sends a worker out, confirms it’s a tree of heaven and lets the trees removal occur without a permit. It’s going to cost property owners enough just to get them removed, and it’s not a single step process. Even with the tree cut down, there are multiple applications of chemicals needed to kill the root system and insure the plant doesn’t come back. The other option for the homeowner is that they let the tree grow and risk it causing physical property damage.

Tree of Heaven on a sidewalk

The big headache comes when a tree of heaven hits a sewer or water main. Only then does the city care about the tree and the problems it causes. There’s a train yard not far from our neighborhood and there swaths of trees of heaven covering parts of the yard. I would guess because it’s open area where wind can easily blow, they are one of the main spreader areas for the tree of heaven.

For my fellow Portlanders please give the city a call if you see one of these trees on city property; They are commonly on sidewalks next to power line poles and near fence lines. If you need help with the tree of heaven, you can also contact TenPDX.

Mystery Colorado Drones

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Late in 2019 there were a number of reports around mystery drones flying over northeastern Colorado and western Nebraska. The origin of the drones remained a mystery for quite a while (and still does), but a bunch of research has given some insight into the concern around unidentified drones flying around the country.

Nevertheless, the documents already released suggest that the FAA, despite a short-lived, but strenuous effort, was unable to determine the origin of the flying formations of sizable aerial devices reported by many credible witnesses in December and January. Senior FAA officials were able, however, to conclude that “there is high confidence these are not covert military activities.”

The released documents contain no evidence that any federal criminal laws were broken by whoever was operating the devices, although the FAA has withheld at least one key document discussing the legal issues surrounding the case. No document yet released suggests that the mystery drones ever encroached on any U.S. military installation, or even into any airspace that was under special FAA restrictions.

So, although The War Zone and the SCU have pursued the Colorado drone flap for over half a year, we still don’t know who was behind the mysterious activity, and from what we’ve seen so far, no one in the Federal Aviation Administration knows either. It’s clear from these FOIA releases that the FAA, state and local authorities in Colorado, and even the AFOSI, took the sightings quite seriously, but it appears that their attention quickly shifted elsewhere once the public reports stopped.

It seems like whoever was behind the drone flyovers learned that there was a large investigation going on and soon stopped their shenanigans, but it still makes for a fascinating mystery. Based on the “space potatoes” that were found, I am wondering if it was some kind of crop health experiment or a agriculture company doing some kind of research. Again, we’ll likely never know unless the owners of the drones come forward.

EU Planning to Bar U.S. Citizens from Entry Upon Reopening

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From the New York Times:

European Union countries rushing to revive their economies and reopen their borders after months of coronavirus restrictions are prepared to block Americans from entering because the United States has failed to control the scourge, according to draft lists of acceptable travelers seen by The New York Times.

and

A prohibition of Americans by Brussels partly reflects the shifting pattern of the pandemic. In March, when Europe was the epicenter, Mr. Trump infuriated European leaders when he banned citizens from most European Union countries from traveling to America. Mr. Trump justified the move as necessary to protect the United States, which at the time had roughly 1,100 coronavirus cases and 38 deaths.

Majestic Cafe
The Times is making a bit of a reach on implying that this is due to Trump banning European citizens from the United States at the beginning of the European surge. I am sure there is a tiny bit of truth to it but I doubt anyone in the EU delegation will say it. To me the move seems more of a pragmatic decision based on where the U.S. and other countries are when it comes to containing Covid-19. I’ve seen posts on Facebook and Twitter of U.S. citizens hopping around European countries because the entry procedures are not uniform, so locking down access at the entry points makes a lot of sense.

Of course this stinks if you are an American wanting or needing to travel to the European Union over the next few months but since we can’t seem to wear masks or socially distance, we reap what we sow.

I recently posted a quick poll on Twitter asking how many people are planning leisure travel via airplane and was surprised by the response. So far out of 334 responses, nearly 40% plan to travel in the next 1-3 months. Only 22% have no plans to travel. With this EU news and the fact that we still can’t seem to get the disease under control here in the States, I am not convinced it is time to travel again. It honestly seems like it is more of a pain than it’s worth and the risks are still far too high.