Introduction

The headaches start with a twinge at the temples. It slowly grows stronger over the course of several hours until it feels like hot pokers are being forced in behind my eyes. The sensation of pain is accompanied by nausea, the combination of which often makes it difficult to remain still. Sometimes I vomit. It usually continues for most of a day. Often the pain will wake me from fitful sleep. Sometimes it's not even gone by morning.

These headaches were, varying in severity, a near-weekly occurrence for me at least as far back as middle school. Usually made worse by lying down—I've always been a side-sleeper—I'd often have to position myself sitting up to moderate the pain enough to sleep. Sometimes that wasn't sufficient, and standing up and walking around was the only way to tolerate the pain. Watching comedy is a good distraction. I've seen South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut a lot.

Pain and chronic illness go hand-in-hand. To live well with chronic illness requires learning how to listen to and understand pain. This is my experience with chronic pain.

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Introduction

I am prone to becoming captivated with devices that are ahead of their time. The Apple Newton (although I arrived well after the start of that party), Nokia’s 770, and MetaWatch’s first smartwatch are some notable examples. They all pioneered a product space and struggled to achieve meaningful success.

MetaWatch caught my eye as a new entry into wearable tech that brought the smartwatch concept to reality with a fashionable, capable device. The hacking opportunities their open source device firmware offered made the device yet more interesting, especially as I am prone to using mobile device platforms that do not receive a lot of official support.

I’d like to discuss some of my experiences with MetaWatch and their devices, and the various missteps and issues that’ve ultimately led to my losing most of the interest I first had in their product line.

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Introduction

I went Paleo in 2012 and hardcore Autoimmune Paleo (AIP) at the beginning of 2014. After chronic exposure to toxic mold, I find myself intolerant to a huge number of foods and very susceptible to cross-contamination. My compromised gut is complicit in my Hashimoto's Thyroiditis, IBS, and a wide range of food sensitivities that make it difficult for me to eat without access to quality ingredients (grass-fed beef, etc.) and my own cooking equipment. These issues only get worse with the stress and lack of sleep that go hand-in-hand with travel.

At the beginning of 2015, my family started planning a vacation to Disney World in Orlando, FL. My sister, my mother, and I all share Hashimoto's, compromised guts, and wide-ranging food sensitivities, so planning a trip like this takes a lot of time and care to ensure we can all feed ourselves. I am, by far, the worst of us. Usually eating out involves me watching everyone else eat while drinking water. Planning a 7-day vacation to a place not known for its culinary sophistication was going to be difficult.

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Introduction

I worked in a large new and used family-owned bookstore for more than 10 years, starting in high school. During my time there we learned how to deal with crazy people and belligerent transients, and developed procedures for dealing with shoplifters that helped us reduce shrinkage and keep staff and customers safe. We did this organically over a period of years, primarily as a collaboration between myself and one of the store owners.

I learned a lot about loss prevention, handling difficult---and sometimes dangerous---people, and how you can make your store procedures and guidelines safer and more effective. This post contains a variety of observations I've gathered from my experiences.

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