Category: Miscellaneous

Obstructive Sleep Apnea [OSA] Diagnosis and Treatment – Part 2

Miscellaneous

Last night was my 19th night sleeping with a CPAP machine and today is the first day that I can remember where I don’t feel tired at all. I did feel better the very first day after using CPAP for the very first time but honestly I had forgotten what it feels like to sleep all night and to wake up the next morning rested.

Now don’t get me wrong – I’m still not going to bed quite when I should, and I’m not getting quite as much sleep as I should, but the sleep I am getting is fantastic. I was sitting and thinking earlier this morning how it is nice to go to sleep and then the next thing I know it’s morning and the day is starting. I remember as a kid when I was trying to go to sleep thinking that the sooner I get to sleep the sooner tomorrow will come and I haven’t felt that way in a long time.

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ResMed AirSense 11

Obstructive Sleep Apnea [OSA] Diagnosis and Treatment

Miscellaneous

It’s probably no surprise to those that know me that I have been diagnosed with Obstructive Sleep Apnea, or OSA. I’ve always snored obnoxiously and I’ve never really ever felt like I’ve gotten real sleep. There were times here or there – times when I was younger – but not these days. I attributed this to ‘getting old.’

After putting it off for years I finally talked to my doctor about my sleep, or lack there-of, and he scheduled me to have a sleep study. I had to go to a sleep center and take a “class” on using the sleep study equipment. By “class” I mean the guy told me how to turn it on, what to expect, what to watch for, and that’s about it. I was also told to expect it to take up to 2 weeks to hear from the doctor after I’ve returned the equipment. The “class” took about 5 or 10 minutes and wasn’t bad. I had the equipment and homeward bound I went.

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Piano is hard

Miscellaneous, Piano

So I’ve always wanted to learn to play the piano, but never really had the opportunity. It would have been better to learn as a kid, and my boys are taking lessons, but I still want to learn.

It turns out piano is way harder than I expected it to be – but that’s ultimately a good thing as I love a challenge.

I am working to quickly identify the keys on the keyboard without having to think about it. I figured it would be easier for me if I randomly generated a note so that I could then find that note on the keyboard.

My first thought was to write an application but then it occurred to me – I could just build a simple webpage. So here it is – the tool: https://mikedvb.com/piano/note-generator.html

It’s very simple – and I won’t lie – I had ChatGPT write it for me. Not because I am not capable but simply because the need was simple and I knew ChatGPT could build it out in only a minute or so – faster than I could type it if I knew exactly what I needed to type.

Maybe this tool will be helpful to someone else at some point, maybe. For me – I load it up on my iPad and put it on top of the piano and then tap the button and then find the key. I just started, but I think it will help!

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Hard Boiling Eggs with a Sous Vide Circulator

Miscellaneous

Cooking eggs can be a tricky business, but with a sous vide circulator, you can achieve perfectly hard boiled eggs every time. Here’s how to do it:

  1. Fill a large pot or container with water and attach your sous vide circulator. Set the temperature to 185°F (85°C) and allow the water to come to temperature.
  2. Once the water is at the correct temperature, carefully place large eggs directly in the water. Make sure the eggs are fully submerged.
  3. Cook the eggs for 1 hour and 30 minutes. Less time and the egg yolks will not be cooked through. You will want to add more time for eggs bigger than “Large”.

    I have cooked eggs for as long as 4 hours before with no negative effects.
  4. After 1 hour and 30 minutes, carefully remove the eggs from the water and immediately place them in an ice water bath to cool. This will stop the cooking process and make the eggs easier to peel.
  5. Once the eggs are cool, gently crack the shells and peel them away if you wish to use them immediately. The eggs should be perfectly hard boiled and ready to be used in your favorite recipes.

If you don’t plan to use the eggs immediately, you can store them unpeeled in the refrigerator for up to 7 days. Simply place them in a sealed container and they will be ready to use whenever you need them.

Remember to always use caution when handling hot water and eggs.

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Gravely Pro-Turn Z 52"

Don’t trust Gravely with your money.

Business, Equipment, Miscellaneous, Mowing, Rants, Reviews

You might have read my post about the issue I had with my Gravely Pro-Turn Z 52″ Mower. In the end they offered to send me a hat as compensation for the matter. I asked for a small bottle of touch-up-paint and to my surprise they sent the paint but not the hat.

Well to be honest I wasn’t entirely happy with my experience so I left an honest review of the machine as well as my experience on their site. Here’s an image of the review:

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PHP 8.0!

Hosting, Miscellaneous, Technology

So I’ll start by saying that honestly – I haven’t personally kept in the loop as to what changes and improvements PHP 8.0 brings over 7.X. I would generally assume that it’s similar to what 7.X promised over 6.X etc.

That said – we did just make 8.0 available today on our shared platform and I did move this site, my own personal little rant-hub, over to 8.0. Not that my site is very heavy or anything – but the site does seem nice and quick. Well…. I’m running the LiteSpeed Cache for WordPress too ;).

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WHMCS – Half Implementing Features since 2007

Business, Hosting, Miscellaneous, Rants

I’ve been using WHMCS as a billing and support platform for web hosting since 2007, for over 13 years now, and as near as I can tell WHMCS was founded in 2005. There have been issues over the years where there was unexpected behavior or unexpected changes during upgrades but every software vendor is going to roll out a bug here or there. Even companies with the best quality assurance and testing are bound to have something slip by – and I understand this.

While I do not and have not ever expected perfection and I do understand that bugs can happen sometimes feature implementation is just poor at best or processes are not well thought-out and planned. The most recent instance of this that has caused me problems is Premium Domain Support in WHMCS. This feature was added to WHMCS in version 7.1 which was released over 4 years ago.

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Time, change, and goals.

Miscellaneous

MichaelIt’s been almost a year since I wrote a post and life has a way of keeping you busy.  I’ve gone through a lot of changes both in my personal as well as my professional life.  I would say I’m not the same person I was a year ago and that isn’t a bad thing.  Over the last year I have become far more tolerant and understanding than I have been in the past.  I’ve been learning to be happier with who and where I am and less worried about where I want to be.

Having goals is obviously a good thing and it is helpful to have something driving you forward; something to drive you towards growing and improving.  It is also important that once you achieve a goal that you set a new goal for yourself and that you always focus on moving forward and not being stuck in the past or even the present.
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AT&T Business Internet [u-Verse] – Slow to replace lightning-damaged equipment

Business, Miscellaneous, Rants

Dead AT&T DSL ModemAt the office where I work unfortunately there are no fiber optic options.  Before we signed the lease we reached out to the local ISP that provides fiber connections for our area and confirmed that they serviced the location we were looking at leasing.  The ISP told us they did service our building and we didn’t find out until after we signed our lease and arranged to set up service that they do not actually service this location.  Sadly enough the only option we have here is AT&T vDSL [AT&T uVerse Business Internet DSL].

We experienced some pretty intense storms today / this evening and experienced several very close lightning strikes.  At least a couple of strikes were within several hundred feet of our office and one of them managed to take out our AT&T uVerse DSL Modem.  Being that AT&T has numerous corporate stores within a short driving distance I really didn’t imagine getting this damaged equipment replaced would be an issue.

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SPAMMERS – I have a question for you…

Hosting, Miscellaneous, Rants

While I don’t really expect to get any answers – I am a little curious.

I know that the reason spammers send spam is to make money.  I don’t think anybody sends spam for fun although I am sure some people have ‘spammed’ others to annoy them/etc.

With that said we get a lot of spam to “support@”, “abuse@”, “sales@”, etc…  Do you actually see a return on sending spam to these addresses or are you so readily able to send the spam that it really doesn’t matter?

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