HinesSight

Supply chain woe: we can't get a part for our broken washing machine

I'm not allowed to use our washing machine, since my wife (correctly) doesn't trust me to handle clothes with the proper water temperature and dryer settings.

But ever since our fairly new Maytag decided that it would be a fun joke to start a washing cycle, then turn off when it got to the rinse mode, Laurel hasn't been able to use the washing machine either. 

She searched our files and found that, as she remembered, we did indeed buy an extended warranty from Kelly's. Sweet, we thought. It wasn't hard to find the "Parts and Service" page on the Kelly's web site.

Which had some optimistic language.

Appliance Hospital is family owned and operated since 1947, Appliance & Refrigeration Hospital is dedicated to providing HONEST, REASONABLE, RELIABLE and REPUTABLE service to our customers in the Seattle, Spokane, Portland, Vancouver, Salem, and Bend areas.

...Our service vehicles stock a large array of factory recommended parts and equipment to quickly return your product to top operating performance.

Please give our knowledgeable, courteous service professionals an opportunity to restore your product to its proper operation. You can count on us!

Likely Appliance Hospital usually does live up to its claim that they can quickly handle a repair. It did take five days for a repairman to show up, but that was fine.

Laurel had gone to a laundromat in the meantime. Not fun, but tolerable given that we expected our washing machine to be fixed promptly.

However, the repair guy said it needed a circuit board. They didn't have one in stock. He said to wait three days, then see if the circuit board was available. Unfortunately, when Laurel phoned she was told that the part had been ordered. No word on when it would come in.

So now we're stuck with an American-made Maytag washer that's unusable for an indefinite future. There's no way to tell whether the laundromat will be Laurel's not-so-favorite hangout for another few days, few weeks, or few months. 

Almost certainly we're a victim of the Supply Chain Hell that has been causing so much disruption.

I'm sure circuit boards are complex. Probably even though Maytag washing machines are made in this country, many or most of the parts for them come from China or somewhere other than the United States.

A neighbor Laurel encountered on a walk said that he's been waiting quite a while for a dishwasher part. He's been washing dishes by hand, something that's a lot tougher to do with clothes. His HVAC upgrade also is on hold due to a lack of materials.

President Biden is working to get our supply chains functioning like they used to. But there's only so much he can do, since mostly this is in the hands of private businesses.

It's just aggravating for so many people to be impacted by shortages when the economy otherwise is doing well. 

I'll copy in a message I got recently from the person in charge of a Kickstarter project I helped fund, being attracted to the lightweight shoes promised by the project. This guy tells a fascinating story of what it's like for a small business owner in these days of supply chain problems.

Dear All, 

The following is a summary of what are the supply issues affecting the market and in particular the footwear market. The following information was collected from different sources but mainly from the Footwear News Corporation (https://footwearnews.com/) but all of the information is available online.

Last year around March when the Great Plague was upon us, nearly every industry, in nearly every country in the world, practically shut down.

And many businesses went bust, never to return.

Eighteen months later the businesses that survived have largely reopened but the reboot process has been riddled with critical errors and system failures.

For example, right now there are countless businesses in industries from retail to manufacturing that are experiencing severe labor shortages. Supply chains around the world are breaking down, resulting in product shortages and major transportation bottlenecks.

The end result of this dumpster fire is that prices are soaring. And I wanted to take this opportunity to connect some of the dots to help explain some of these important trends with regards to the delivery of the Sockwa X10 product.

So let’s revisit March 2020 again when everything shut down. You probably recall that dozens of large companies declared bankruptcy, like Nieman Marcus, GNC, JC Penny, etc.

But there were other companies that went bust which most people have probably never heard of. They were in more mundane, less sexy industries… like manufacturing...the closure of these unsexy industries created supplier shortages. Though their demise was hardly noticed, it turns out they would have a significant impact on the global economy.

Supply has fallen. Last March when a large number of manufacturers went out of business, no one noticed and no one cared. And this production capacity cannot be simply turned on again with a flip of a switch. It takes a lot of effort to resurrect a bankrupt factory, to re-hire and re-train workers.

This trend is worldwide -- even foreign factories (Chinese) have closed, and those that remain open are struggling to retain workers and operate under strict COVID protocols. Manufacturing efficiency is way down as a result, so they’re not producing enough supply to keep up with demand and the big companies like Nike and Adidas are gobbling up whatever capacity any footwear manufacturer that is still in business can offer. Not much production room for the little guys!

Then there are the actual shipping problems:

Shipping Container Pricing -- shipping container prices have exploded. From March 2020 up to March 2021 a 40ft container could be purchased for +/- $2,500-$3,000. Today's opening price is $25,000 - $30,000 per container and there is still no guarantee that you will win the price auction on those containers available.  This increase in price means that shipping your product is now 6-10x more expensive than estimated depending on the size of the product.  We estimated $5 which was realistic when we launched, now we are over $30 to ship the same product.

Shipping Delays -- then there are the crazy delays evident in almost every port in the world, that prevent container ships from delivering their cargo.

A range of factors, including COVID rules and union regulations, means there’s a shortage of maritime crew to operate the vessels. There’s also a shortage of dockworkers, truck drivers, forklift operators, etc. at the ports.

The supply chain chaos has been brewing since the beginning of the global COVID-19 pandemic and has been building momentum ever since. Industry insiders who have first-hand exposure to its ever-changing variables and reach admit they’ve never seen anything like it before. And these experts remain unclear about when the eye of the current Supply Chain storm may finally pass by the footwear, apparel, and textile industries.

The supply chain, shipping and logistics storm, which has battered many industries since the pandemic commenced, increased in velocity during the Summer of 2021 with container shortages, port logjams, surging shipping costs that have forced some brands to resort to air freight, and finally a shutdown of key Asian sourcing factories due to virus spread among workers in Asia.

These factors will result in shipping delays for holiday 2021 and Spring/Summer 2022, late and/or limited deliveries to retailers, possible product shortages on key items and higher costs for consumers looking to snare the season’s hottest products.

Athletic giants Nike and Adidas are not going unscathed by the situation. Like the Sockwa X10, Nike & Adidas are facing problems beyond securing higher-priced container space on shipping vessels.

Crocs’ McNelly sums up the harsh realities of today’s logistics and supply chain climate. “[Vendors] are paying more for less — for less predictability, less space and less movement,” she says, predicting “it’s going to take a long time to get back to the new normal.”

I appreciate that there are some individual pledgers that are not at all happy with me for not communicating more, not producing a survey that collects your size and your address and yes I am late in delivering the product that you pledged for.  I honestly did not foresee the gravity of the above global production and shipping issues when I launched the Sockwa X10 campaign.

I believe that everyone who pledged for the Sockwa X10 understands or has access to information about what has happened since March 2020 and what is happening in the world right now.

So where does the above leave us now regarding the Sockwa X10 crowdfunding campaign?

Production: 75% of the order is ready to ship, we are just waiting for the insoles to come out of production which should now be within the next two weeks (we have had production delays for this factory too).

Shipping: As the price of shipping has increased x10 since we launched the campaign, there are two choices. One is to add an additional $25 to each pair shipped or to wait for the shipping container prices to get back to the levels or similar on which the campaign was launched.  For those that ordered more than one pair, the shipping price of extra $25/pair would reduce for the 2nd, 3rd pair etc.

I have been holding off on sending the survey in the past couple of weeks as I tried to work out how to present this extra shipping scenario in the pledge management software and also crossing my fingers that there might be some sign that shipping container prices stop increasing - I am still working on the survey presentation presently.

Nobody is or was prepared for what is happening regarding these shipping costs and shipping problems, never mind the production issues.

I still need to know sizes, delivery addresses etc because I need to know how much textile to produce for the remaining 25% of the orders.

I will try my best to either complete the pledge management survey in the next few days or find a way of getting people to enter their details onto our Shopify website.  Worst case scenario, I can get you to email me the details.

I am very sorry guys, I'm 54 years old and I have been managing my own businesses for the past 21 years and before that I ran other peoples' businesses for 10 years and I have never experienced anything vaguely close to what has happened since February/March 2021.

I appreciate that there are companies that have $millions more revenue than mine that have gone bust in the past 18 months but that doesn't help me sleep every night.  My company has not gone bust and I still intend to supply everyone who pledged with their product order.

Thank you for your understanding.  I know the above is not what anyone wants to read but it is a reality.  I will update again before the end of this month. Hopefully, I will have some better news to provide.

Kind regards,

Patrick

A big burn pile is still fun for me at 73

There's pluses and minuses that come with living on ten wooded acres in rural south Salem, Oregon. Our property is a heck of a lot of work to maintain.

But some of that work is so pleasant, it's better termed fun. Especially if that word, fun, is loosely defined. 

Today Laurel, my wife, and I tackled a large burn pile. Originally it consisted of a massive amount of branches that I'd hauled up to our burn area from a pile under two tall redwoods -- remnants of some tree work we'd had done after a destructive ice storm last February.

Here's Laurel tossing a branch onto the super-hot fire this afternoon.

It had bothered me to see the branches scattered under the redwoods.

So over the span of several days last summer, I filled up our nifty electric cart with supplies -- chain saw, gas, bar oil, water, safety gear -- and worked away at cutting up the largest branches into a size suitable to carry to the burn pile.

When most of the branches had been hauled away, I liked the way the ground under the redwoods looked.

The redwoods seemed happy also, though tree emotions can be hard to discern.

I had a relaxing 73rd birthday on Friday. Saturday was a day of labor. Laurel had been asking when I was going to get around to cutting up a bunch of wild plum trees that had collapsed in the ice storm. Some were still alive, but laying on the ground. 

They were on a trail just a few feet from our yard. So I spent three or four hours with my chainsaw cutting the base of each tree, then laboriously removing the branches that had gotten tangled up with other fallen trees and surrounding brush. I carried the trunks and branches to our lawn, then cut up the larger pieces so we could carry them to the burn pile.

Today was set everything on fire day. The Jefferson Fire District said it was OK to burn. The weather was dry and sunny. We were tired from the work we'd done the day before, but had enough energy for the burning.

I've written several other blog posts about the Joy of a Burn Pile: "Firing up a big burn pile reminds me: life is ablaze, yet ends in embers," and "A big burn pile reminds me why we're not in a retirement community." I find it really satisfying to see a lot of wood that we've carried to the burn pile go up in smoke.

However, this year smoke from the fire was pleasingly minimal. The branches that were under the redwoods were dry to start with, and they'd spent the summer under a tarp getting even drier. 

So we were able to get the fire going strong, then gradually add green branches from the wild plum trees I'd cut yesterday. I'd worried that the green wood wouldn't burn, but that worry faded as I saw that even green branches didn't stand a chance against the high heat of the fire.

We started burning at abut 1:15 pm. It only took us 90 minutes or so to get rid of the branches. Here's Laurel and Mooka, our dog, contemplating what we had wrought.

When all of the wood had been put on the burn pile, I enjoy pushing long unburnt pieces onto the hot coals, doing my best to avoid setting fire to myself. I wear leather gloves, though I took them off for this photo of Old Man and His Burn Pile.

The brown area in front of the fire used to be a pile of branches about five feet high.

A burn pile thus is akin to natural magic. You start with a huge pile of wood. You end up with a small amount of ashes. Plus heat and some smoke. By late afternoon the fire had shrunk even more, with all the wood, both dry and green, almost totally consumed.

Facing Catheter-Related Depression: Brian's Story

Today 180 Medical published the essay I wrote for them on their blog, calling it "Facing Catheter-Related Depression: Brian's  Story." 

They decided not to put my email address in, though I said this would be fine with me. In case anyone wants to contact me about what I wrote, my email address is in the right sidebar, or click here. 

The blog post looks great -- nicely laid out. There were a few edits to shorten the piece, but I didn't even notice what got left out. Jessica Flint's introduction was well put.

It’s not often talked about, but the process of catheterization can sometimes impact mental and emotional health. Some people may face catheter-related depression or anxiety while others might handle the transition to catheterization with few hiccups. Also, some may need to use catheters as a result of a traumatic illness or injury, which can also make a major impact on one’s mental health.

These issues aren’t necessarily rare, and yet most resources only talk about topics like how to use a catheter. Not many resources talk about how having to use catheters can make you feel.

In Brian’s personal story, he shares how he came to need to use catheters as well as some of the difficulties he has experienced. He knows firsthand how the transition to using catheters can be deeply frustrating and isolating for some. By sharing his experience openly, Brian hopes to help other catheter-users know they’re not alone in their struggles.

 

 

"On the ground" is way over-used in the news

I'm writing this blog post on the ground here in my house in rural south Salem, Oregon. Does me saying "on the ground" add anything to that sentence? 

No. Leaving it out takes nothing away that needs saying. "I'm writing this blog post here in my house in rural south Salem, Oregon" is completely accurate all by itself.

I've noticed that on the ground is being used much more frequently in news shows. And mostly for no reason. 

"We turn now to David Fleming reporting on the ground from Afghanistan" would only make sense if Fleming sometimes broadcast his segment while hovering in the air or buried in the earth. 

Otherwise, it's obvious that he's on the ground. Where else would he be? 

Take out the on the ground and we know all that's needed: Fleming is reporting from Afghanistan. Adding in that phrase seems intended to denote a sense that the reporter is right in the thick of something important, the original meaning of "on the ground." 

But today I heard a MSNBC anchor say something like this to a guest: "Tell us what it's like to be on the ground of a contentious school board meeting these days."

That's absurd.

I can accept using that phrase in a sentence such as "We're going live to our reporter embedded on the ground with a Marine force engaged in a firefight on the Pakistan border." Even here, on the ground doesn't add any information, but it conveys a sense of dangerous on-the-spot immediacy.

Whereas a school administrator relating how school board meetings are going when anti-mask parents show up doesn't deserve an on the ground. 

I'm hoping that the inappropriate use of those words has hit a peak and will soon decline. This isn't a major problem like global warming. It just irks me. 

Pleasingly, some Googling turned up others who found the phrase unnecessary for the same reasons I did.

The Community Writing Center in Salt Lake City
“on the ground”—Particularly overused in news reporting, this phrase conveys no additional information.

The Manila Times
I’d like to share with readers this rather provocative e-mail from business columnist Oscar P. Lagman, Jr., asking me to comment on the frequent use nowadays of the phrase “on the ground” by personalities in the news. He thinks that their overuse of the idiom is “inappropriate,” saying that it reminds him of my oft-said comment in my columns that “at the end of the day” is annoyingly overused by media and government officials.

Grammarphobia
Q: I’ve had my fill of the new and irritatingly ubiquitous expression “on the ground” in sentences like this: “Let’s speak about the state of charity work on the ground in Africa.” What possible meaning would be lost if “on the ground” were left out? My guess is that this phrase is of military origin, but now every pundit and reporter who wants to sound hip and savvy uses it.

A: I agree that “on the ground” is an empty, unnecessary phrase in a sentence like the one you’ve given. It’s more of a verbal tic than a meaningful usage.

A tweet.

Let's agree with George Bernard Shaw, "All men mean well"

It was kind of a strange place to resonate with a George Bernard Shaw quotation. 

Last night my wife and I had just finished watching episode 7 of the HBO Max series, "Love Life." Following each episode, there's an interesting discussion of it between Anna Kendrick, who plays the main character with a love life, and three other people involved with putting on the series.

One of them said something like, "As Shaw put it, All men mean well. Sinners, saints, everybody." Hearing those words, I paused Apple TV, got a pen and piece of paper, and wrote down the quote.

As I told my wife, one reason I liked the quote so much was that the day before I'd written a blog post about how the Oregon football team had lost to Stanford in the last two minutes because of a dreadful coaching error and two 15-yard penalties by a couple of defensive players who messed up big-time.

Since Oregon was ranked #3 in the country, those screw-ups made it considerably less likely that the team would end up in the four-team college football playoff for a national championship.

But I suddenly realized something obvious that had escaped me.

The coach calling the offensive plays meant well when he ordered up a pass after Oregon had been running the ball well and taking time off the clock near the end of the game. Yes, that incomplete pass gave Stanford an extra 40 seconds or so that enabled them to score a tying touchdown, and then win in overtime.

Yet when that pass play was called, the coach thought it would help his team win the game. Ditto with the two penalties. The players who roughed up the Stanford quarterback also meant well. They were trying to do their part to stop the Stanford offense, even though it turned out that those 30 penalty yards were a big reason Oregon ended up losing.

The full George Bernard Shaw quotation will be more familiar to many. 

I think this is absolutely true, though I'm sure others would disagree.

Understand: I'm not saying that the actions of Hitler and Ghandi are to be equated because each man felt he was doing the right thing. Obviously people who are causing others to suffer need to be stopped, while people who are causing good things to happen need to be supported.

It just struck me that always viewing our fellow humans as meaning well -- from their own point of view -- takes away a lot of the judgmentalism and holier-than-thou posturing that bugs me when other people do it, so it should bother me just as much when I do it.

Meaning, when we stop calling into question the motives of other people and focus instead on the consequences of their actions, the world becomes a better place. 

For example, I don't like how Senators Manchin and Sinema are standing in the way of President Biden's agenda. Often I think they're selfish, uninformed, and beholden to special interests. All that may be true. However, when I think, "But Manchin and Sinema mean well," my irritation at them becomes less personal and more political.

I stop thinking of them as bad people, and see them as engaged in some bad actions from my point of view  -- a big difference. The same even is true of Donald Trump, though it's more difficult for me to think "he means well." Still, Trump does, in his own mind. 

Anyway, George Bernard Shaw was on to something when he came up with the quotation that I like so much, though it's true that both "hell" and "heaven" are paved with good intentions. It's just that when an intention ends up creating something positive, we view it as heavenly, while the creation of something negative is viewed as hellish.

Oregon's loss to Stanford threw me into temporary depression

There's nothing worse than watching a favorite football team lose a game that they had well in hand, before they make a bunch of dumb-ass mistakes that snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory.

That's what happened to the Oregon Ducks this afternoon. 

Sure, their play sucked in much of the first half. But Oregon had a 24-17 lead at 1:59 left in the fourth quarter with Stanford on its own 4-yard line.

There should have been even less time left on the clock if Oregon hadn't inexplicably gone for a pass on its last possession instead of running the ball, as the Ducks had been doing successfully.

So that was a bad coaching mistake.

Then Kayvon Thibodeaux gets hit with a targeting penalty -- helmet to helmet contact -- that gives Stanford fifteen penalty yards. Really dumb move on the part of Thibodeaux. 

Which was followed up by Brandon Dorlus getting a roughing the passer penalty, giving Stanford another fifteen penalty yards. 

Thus Oregon gifts Stanford 30 of the 96 yards they needed, plus about 40 seconds extra time because of the absurd coaching decision to attempt a pass when Oregon had been doing a great job using up the clock near the end of the game.

And this was after Stanford's starting quarterback had to leave the game with an injury. His backup made some great plays, including a two yard pass that tied the game after a pass interference penalty on the Ducks gave Stanford one more play with no time left on the clock.

Stanford scores a touchdown in overtime. Oregon does nothing. Game over for the 3rd ranked Ducks. 

I've experienced a lot of heartbreak watching Oregon games during the 50 years I've lived in this state. This one depressed me more than any I can recall. But maybe I'm blocking out a previous traumatic game akin to this one.

It just seemed like a broken promise of sorts.

I'd arranged my afternoon around watching the game. It was a nice day. I could have done some chores that beckoned on our ten acres. However, nothing seemed more important than watching Oregon take another step toward what hopefully would be a place in the college football playoff for a national championship.

Turns out the Ducks did take a big step. Backward. 

Again, it was the way Oregon lost that was so disturbing. Like, maybe, just maybe, the coaching staff should have drummed into the defensive player's brains in the last two minutes, "No stupid penalties!" I wouldn't have minded Stanford beating Oregon. Instead, Oregon beat itself.

The 30 yards of totally unnecessary penalties was the difference in the game, along with the failure to take more time off the clock by running instead of passing on the Duck's last possession in regulation.

I rely on John Canzano of the Oregonian to put a game like this in perspective. Reading his post-game piece made me feel a bit better to know that my negative take on how Oregon performed fit with the view of a top sports columnist. 

Oregon worked hard to lose on Saturday. It was without center Alex Forsyth. Play caller Joe Moorhead was out sick. The Ducks called passes when they should have rushed and UO had two players ejected for targeting. Oregon also blew a line of assignments, missed a bunch of tackles, and mismanaged the clock.

...Up by seven with two minutes to go? The No. 3 team in America? All those four and five-star players? Oregon blew the lead and left with a 4-1 record while a bunch of giddy Stanford engineering and computer science majors jumped the railing and hopped around on the field in front of them.

Put this 2021 Stanford game on the very top of the pile of a bunch of painful defeats to the Cardinal. Right up there with the losses in 2001, 2009, 2012 and 2013. Saturday, in fact, marked the fifth time in the last 20 years that the Cardinal beat a Ducks team ranked in the Top 10.

...Blame the Pac-12 refs?

I can’t go there today, folks.

Not while quarterback Anthony Brown Jr. was so shaky with his reads. Not with the defense wilting down the stretch. Not with so many points left on the field and so many questions unanswered. Credit to Stanford for the win, but let’s be real -- they’re just OK, aren’t they?

Oregon was a terrible, sloppy, uneven mess against that act.

...The Ducks players are going to get sick when they watch the film and observe all the ways in which they gave away what should have easily been a road win.

My wife's sister died today. It was a good death.

We're all going to die. That's 100% certain. Death follows life with a cosmic inevitability. The big question is: Will we die a good death?

This morning my wife, Laurel, learned that her older sister, Lynn, had died last night. Naturally there were tears. But not much sorrow. Because Lynn died a good death. 

In fact, a very good death. Exactly the way most of us would want to go, Laurel and I definitely included.

Lynn and her husband, Randy, had driven to Colorado from their home in Kentucky. Randy took her there as a romantic gesture. 

He had proposed to Lynn in Colorado. That's where they went on their honeymoon. 

Lynn had some health problems. However, she wasn't feeling bad on their Colorado trip. Last night she and Randy walked around the town where they were staying.

Sometime during the night Randy felt Lynn slumped against him in bed. He tried to wake her up. Then he realized she wasn't breathing. He called 911. Efforts to resuscitate her failed. 

Death sucks. Even when you're in your mid-70s, Lynn's age. Life is precious. Nobody wants to die so long as life seems worth living, 

Yet when death comes, most of us fear the suffering that often accompanies a person's last days more than dying itself. 

That's why Lynn had a good death. To die in your sleep while on a romantic getaway with your spouse -- that's a fine way to say goodbye to life.

No suffering. No lengthy period of physical decline. No beeping monitors in an ICU. Just going to sleep and not waking up.

Who knows? This could happen to any of us. Like, tonight. Or, tomorrow. Yesterday Lynn had no idea she was going to die. That's wonderful. 

To be alive one moment and dead the next, without a lengthy string of moments in-between marked by fear, anxiety, regret, or other negative emotions that afflict many dying people, that's a very good death.

My problem with the Mendi neurofeedback device

It's been a bit more than two months since I started using the Mendi neurofeedback device that I ordered via a Kickstarter campaign.

I started off enthusiastic about my Mendi, as discussed in my July 26 blog post, "I'm enjoying my Mendi neurofeedback device."

I've only been using the Mendi for a short time and need to do more exploring with it. This is my initial impression of what works best to get the ball moving upward.

My first try with the Mendi produced a pretty good score. I think this was because I simply focused on the ball and didn't try to make the ball go up.

The next few Mendi sessions didn't go so well, probably because I was trying to get a better score. From what I can tell so far -- and my experience likely is different from other Mendi users -- trying isn't the best way to train the brain.

Not trying is. 

Well, after a lot more experience with my Mendi, I'm much less enthused about the device. The main reason why was pointed to in my first blog post when I said that after I did well with the Mendi, the next few sessions didn't go so well.

For quite a while I thought the problem was with me, not the device.

But now I lean strongly to the position that the Mendi hardware, the software, or both isn't capable of reliably providing feedback on how well a user is concentrating on the single task currently available with the smart phone app: making a ball rise.

I've been meditating every day for over fifty years, often for an hour or two.

I'm a strong advocate of mindfulness, my current approach to meditation. So I'm confident that I can tell the difference between a frenzied scattered mind and a calm concentrated mind. 

Yet the scores I get with the Mendi device have little or nothing to do with my ability to focus on the ball. There's simply no evident connection between my state of mind and how much the ball moves upward, which supposedly is a reflection of oxygenated blood flow and neural activity.

The folks who designed and sell the Mendi device also seem to have a haphazard way of describing what a user is supposed to do during their sessions.

My iPhone app tells me to relax and focus on the ball. But I've also seen the advice to concentrate on trying to make the ball go upward, which is quite different from simply focusing on the ball. And other advice is to think about a mental issue you're working on, like anxiety about something.

My suspicion is that the reason there are so many different ways of describing how someone is supposed to use their Mendi device is that there's no consistent way of making the ball go up. Meaning, the device basically is giving random results, not genuine neurofeedback about someone's state of mind or ability to concentrate. 

As noted in my first blog post, I get better scores in a dark room than in the room I meditate each morning in -- which has a window facing west with a white shade that I pull down. So even though sun isn't coming through the window, even diffuse light appears to lead to a lower Mendi score.

Thus the combination of not getting results that match up with my feeling relaxed and concentrated and the sensitivity of the Mendi device to how bright a room is, possibly along with other external factors (like where on the forehead the device is worn) has caused me to stop using the device on a regular basis.

I figure that simply meditating is a better use of my time than getting scores from the device that, so far as I can tell, don't mean anything. Reportedly a software/app update is coming that might deal with my concerns, so I'll keep an open mind about the device.

I was moved to write this follow-up blog post about the Mendi device after reading a Facebook post from a user who has a similar attitude to mine. Since you have to be a member of the private Facebook group to read the posts, I'll copy in what Sami Zegnani had to say.

After several months of practice, I notice that my progress is extremely low. I have managed to make 37% increase but this is because the procedure consists of meditating during the Calibration and then I pick up the phone and inevitably my head falls and this causes an increase in blood flow in the brain. Otherwise nothing works.

 

My background is that in the middle of meditation, I reach a HRV easily exceeding 70 ms, sometimes I reach 100 ms which shows that my blood flow can be very high... On other neurofeedback devices, either on muse or on myndlift I am one of the most experienced. My scores are very good. I have thousands of hours of vipassana meditation. So I have a serious problem with this device.

 

Not only do I not progress despite regular and consistent practice, but I don't feel any well being after a session, sometimes I have a little headache! I mean I can understand that I have a low score, I started meditation 13 years ago and I had no concentration. I made 10 retreats..

 

But what I do know is that in just a few short weeks, the progress in meditation has been felt. I have no problem with having to learn. I recently started Wim Hof and I saw the benefits even though I was a novice. But with mendi, nothing, nothing nothing.

 

I wanted to wait before saying anything but now that several weeks have passed, I have a huge doubt about the device and its measurement. I'm really sorry to have to say this because I would have liked to say something good about this device. If this post can reassure people who are practicing and who think that maybe they are the problem. No, it's not necessarily you.

My urinary catheter-related depression and anxiety

Recently I finished a 2,500 word essay for the consideration of 180 Medical, the firm that supplies me with urinary catheters. After I got a message from 180 Medical saying that they welcome essays about how people experience using a catheter, I wrote back saying I'm interested in this, having written a bunch of blog posts about my life with a catheter.
Download 180 Medical essay PDF

(I've also copied in the essay below.)

A marketing specialist with 180 Medical read some of those posts and suggested I write about my catheter-related depression and anxiety. It took me quite a while to get around to this, since it required dredging up memories that I've tried to suppress as much as possible. But now I'm glad that I did this. Usually it's better to face our problems head-on.

My catheter-related depression and anxiety
by Brian Hines
[email protected]

I wish I didn’t have to use a catheter to urinate. I wish I hadn’t made mistakes that may have caused my bladder to become dysfunctional, leading me to need a catheter. I wish I hadn’t suffered from so much anxiety and depression during the four and a half years I’ve been a catheter user.

But wishes are one thing. Reality is another. I’m going to be real with you. 

If you’re looking for a feel-good story of how a 72 year-old man has been coping with his catheterizing, look somewhere else. Sure, now I’m doing pretty well with my catheterizing. This wasn’t always the case, though. So i’m not going to sugarcoat those hard times.

In a movie about the life of C.S. Lewis, Shadowlands, a student tells Lewis, “We read to know that we are not alone.” 

My hope is that some people who also have had problems with using a catheter will read this and realize that even though our struggles mostly are private, we share a determination to make the best of a difficult situation. 

Up until the age of 68, I had no significant health problems. My family doctor would tell me at my annual checkup, “You’re a poster child for growing old.” I’d earned a karate black belt at age 56. I’d take my boogie board on vacations to Maui and catch big waves with the locals. I took up senior citizen skateboarding when I was 64.

I figured, wrongly, that I had many more years of good health ahead of me.

Yes, I had a prostate problem. It didn’t seem like a big deal, though. I took several prostate medications. I needed to urinate more frequently, getting up several times a night. I always got an aisle seat on airplanes to ease a trip to the restroom. 

Looking back, I should have realized that I needed to see a urologist. It became more difficult for me to start peeing, a different problem than having to pee too often. Yet I didn’t mention this to my family doctor. I thought I was just having normal symptoms of an enlarged prostate. 

Then everything changed in May 2017. My wife and I went to visit an old friend who I hadn’t seen in over 40 years. We drove to the Bend area from a vacation cabin we owned with three other families in Camp Sherman, Oregon.

Before getting to his house, I thought about stopping to pee. But I didn’t need to go that bad, so I drove on. Once we got there, our conversation on a deck overlooking the beautiful Deschutes River was so pleasant, I didn’t want to interrupt it by going to the bathroom.

When I finally did, I couldn’t go. Since this had happened before, I figured I just needed to wait a while and try again. Except, I kept trying every half hour or so, until someone asked why I was visiting the bathroom so much. 

This went on until mid-afternoon. By then I really needed to pee, but still couldn’t. My friend and his girlfriend told me that this was serious and I needed to get medical help. Good advice, which I didn’t take.

Well, actually I did, sort of. We Googled the address of an urgent care center in Bend. Driving there, I peed in my pants involuntarily. Luckily, I’d brought along some extra clothes.

I changed in the urgent care restroom, then saw a male nurse who asked what my problem was. “I can’t urinate,” I said. “At least, not voluntarily.” For some reason he wanted a urine sample. “Um,” I told him, “I can’t pee, so that’s not going to happen.” 

He gave me a glass. “Drink three glasses of water,” he said. “Then try to urinate into this bottle.” I should have argued with him, but I didn’t. I sat in the room by myself and drank the water. Then went into a bathroom and couldn’t urinate.

By that time I was distraught. I wasn’t thinking straight. I couldn’t pee on my own but had wet my pants. I was frustrated, tired, fed up. Holding the empty collection bottle in my hand, I walked out and told a different nurse that I wanted to leave.

“Do you want a catheter,” she asked me. 

I didn’t know what a catheter was. I didn’t care what a catheter was. I just wanted to go back to our cabin, take our dog for a walk, and wait until I could pee on my own again. Yeah, none of that makes sense. But at the time it did, because I was so upset with how the day had gone.

“No,” I told her. “All right,” she said. “You’ll need to sign a release form absolving us of responsibility for letting you leave without treatment.” Big danger sign, in retrospect. Yet I scribbled my name on the form.

The memory of what happened in the urgent care center is as fresh today as it was four and a half years ago. I agonize over that single word that came out of my lips, “No.” What if I had said “Yes”? Why didn’t I say “Yes”? One word. One little word. Choosing one word over another may have changed my life for the worse, forever.

We drove back to the cabin. I involuntarily peed in my pants again. After all, I’d just drunk three glasses of water in the urgent care center, when I already had been unable to urinate for about ten hours.

That night I keep getting up to see if I could pee. I couldn’t. The pain was bad. As soon as the sun was up I told my wife, “I need to get medical help.” We packed up and drove two hours to Salem. I peed in my pants again. A Salem Health urgent care nurse sent me to the Emergency Room.

There I got an indwelling catheter. Several weeks later, still unable to urinate much on my own, I was told that I’d have to do intermittent catheterization. Which I still am.

Several months after my traumatic urinary retention episode, I asked my urologist if my atonic, nonfunctioning bladder would have gotten back to the way it was if I’d said “Yes” to the offer of a catheter in the Bend urgent care center.

He said, “Perhaps.” I held it together until I got into my car. Then I cried all the way home. 

Almost every day since, I’ve thought about how stupid it was of me to refuse the offer of a catheter. I should have asked what a catheter was. I should have asked what would happen if I didn’t get the massive amount of urine in my bladder out. But I didn’t. And I can’t stop blaming myself for that. 

My wife is a retired psychotherapist. She thinks I have PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder. She’s probably right. However, it didn’t take long before I had an even worse mental problem: depression. 

(If you’re mildly depressed yourself reading this sorrowful tale, hang in there. It’s going to end on a positive note, once I get through the anxiety and depression stuff.)

I already wasn’t happy, to put it mildly, about facing a lifelong need to insert a plastic tube up up my urethra five times a day. When I started getting nighttime leg cramps, forcing me to wake up and walk around my bedroom until they went away, then doing this again a few hours later all night long, the lack of sleep helped push me into a full-blown depression. 

Not fun. At first I just thought I was tired. And sad about my non-functional bladder. Then my wife said, “No, you’re depressed.” She was right. 

I had no interest in doing things I used to enjoy, like write posts for my three blogs. From being afraid of dying, I started to think that, hey, death wouldn’t be so bad. At least I’d be free of feeling like I was in an emotional black hole with no exit sign.

My urologist’s office said there was no way the leg cramps could be related to my bladder problem. I pointed out that I’d never had leg cramps before, and now I did, shortly after starting to use a catheter. 

Fortunately, I was able to see a Sleep Clinic physician. After being prescribed gabapentin, the leg cramps went away. I also was fortunate that my primary care doctor’s office had a psychiatric nurse practitioner. She diagnosed me with Major Depression, Single Episode. 

So I now had a mental health diagnosis to add to my growing list of physical problems. I was prescribed an antidepressant, which over several months helped me climb out of the black hole I was in, along with counseling sessions with a social worker.

Depression was in my rear view mirror. Unfortunately, catheter-related anxiety was in the passenger seat right next to me, where it still sits. Worse, sometimes anxiety feels like it’s taken my place in the drivers’s seat — though gradually I’ve gotten better at keeping anxiety’s hands off of my mental steering wheel.

I don’t know whether the frequent trouble I have getting a catheter to pass into my bladder is typical for many men, or atypical. Regardless, this has been my biggest longstanding problem. 

In the early days I’d call my urology clinic and talk with the nurses who worked with my doctor. “I’m having trouble inserting the catheter,” I’d say. “Do you have any tips?” I’d be told to take a shower, go for a walk, or wait a while and then try again.

OK, but I wanted to get back to what I’d been doing before my bladder stopped working like it should. Eating out. Going to a movie. Visiting friends. If I went into a restroom at a restaurant to do my catheter thing, then found I couldn’t insert it, obviously taking a shower wasn’t an option.

And I didn’t want to interrupt a meal with friends by saying, “Sorry, I’ve got to go for a walk and then see if I can get a catheter into my bladder.” Not exactly a great dinner conversation topic.

Not being able to insert a catheter at bedtime was the worst. I was tired. I wanted to sleep. I needed to urinate. Yet sometimes I’d spend an hour or more lying on the bed, trying to relax with breathing exercises, so the damn catheter would pass into my bladder.

To make a long story short — and this story really is long — at times I got extremely frustrated and angry. My wife had to put up with quite a few outbursts where I’d either start crying or slam doors or both, because I was having such a difficult time inserting a catheter. 

I’d try catheters other than the Flex Coude Pro that I’d come to know and love. (Well, except when I couldn’t get it into my bladder.) But none of them were anywhere near as comfortable and easy to use as the Flex Coude Pro, so I stuck with it. 

Eventually I had the bright idea of trying a smaller size catheter, FR12 or FR10 rather than FR14. Often I could insert one of those when the FR14 wouldn’t go in.

Even so, I still am anxious about traveling or going anywhere where I might need to use a public restroom. I haven’t flown since I started using a catheter. I haven’t driven by car more than two hours from where I live. 

If I could be confident that popping in a catheter would go smoothly, I’d be hugely happier. That would allow me to view myself as simply differently-abled in how I pee. However, not knowing when I’ll have trouble inserting a catheter — I haven’t been able to predict when this happens — makes me anxious.

And when I have a particularly difficult time, my mind generates flashbacks to the traumatic day and a half back in May 2017 I’ve described. It must be similar to a war veteran hearing fireworks and feeling like it’s a roadside bomb. When I’m unable to insert a catheter, sometimes I feel panicked, like I did when I couldn’t pee at my friend’s house or in the urgent care center.

However, I don’t want to leave the impression that I’m a total catheter train wreck. I’ve learned a lot over the years. Most days now, things either go smoothly for me, or I’m able to handle occasional problems inserting a catheter with no freakout. 

I’ve accepted the fact that almost certainly I’ll have to use a catheter for the rest of my life. 

My bladder has recovered some function, but nowhere near enough, I strongly suspect, to ever justify prostate surgery. I got a second opinion from a medical school urologist who told me, bluntly, “You don’t have a prostate problem, you have a bladder problem.”

However, I always thought I had a prostate problem. It never occurred to me that my bladder might stop working one day, and my primary care doctor didn’t  bring up this possibility. 

I haven’t stopped regretting walking out of the urgent care center in Bend. However, I do my best to tone down that regret by focusing on a couple of things that allow me to fashion a story which doesn’t have me as the Bad Guy as regards my non-functional bladder.

First, my urologist said that not getting medical care sooner could have harmed my bladder’s ability to recover from the urinary retention episode. Could. This isn’t certain. So regardless of how I acted that day, I might well have still needed to use a catheter.

Second, during a cystoscopy (scoping of my bladder) by the second-opinion urologist, he said, “Look at that pocket in the bladder wall. That was caused by the bladder trying to push urine through your prostate for a long time.”

A long time. Those words imply that my bladder was gradually losing functionality for quite a few years, so slowly that I viewed this as a normal part of aging for a man with a prostate problem.

It’s difficult, but I’m learning to forgive myself. After all, there may not be much to forgive. 

I try to remember that life is difficult for everybody, and I’m more fortunate than many. As my wife frequently reminds me, I’m pretty damn healthy overall. I use a chainsaw on our ten rural acres. I put 40 pound bags of salt in our water softener. I can bicycle, lift weights, do Tai Chi.

Life isn’t over just because I have to use a catheter five times a day. As I’ve described, there were moments when I thought life wasn’t worth living. Now, though, I’m almost as happy as I was before. 

Almost. And that’s good enough for me, especially given the much darker days I went through with my catheter-related depression and anxiety. 

 

Nuance is what our country needs now

There's way too many Americans unduly confident right now.

They're sure they're right about Covid policies, the just-ended war in Afghanistan, racial justice, abortion, and a host of other issues that mostly get reduced to short sound bites, pithy Twitter tweets, brief Facebook posts, and other manifestations of our desire to appear absolutely certain about subjects that demand a word currently out of fashion. 

Nuance. 

Which means, a subtle distinction, an awareness of delicate shadings (as of meaning, feelings. or value). How did we get to such a dearth of nuance among a large proportion of our citizenry? 

It's tempting to blame it on Trump. He was a master of anti-nuance.

The crowds who adored his blunt, cocky, in-your-face style of speaking didn't want a political meal marked by difficult-to-describe subtle flavors. They wanted red meat cooked to a crisp over blazing hot coals, doused with BBQ sauce that hit the taste buds like a giant pickup truck rolling over liberal sacred cows.

But that's too simplistic.

The United States seems to bounce back and forth between presidents with greater or lesser nuance.  George H.W. Bush was less nuanced than Bill Clinton who was more nuanced than George W. Bush who was less nuanced than Barack Obama who was (way) more nuanced than Donald Trump who was (way) less nuanced than Joe Biden.

Those "way's" reflect the fact that Trump represented a recent peak of simplistic crudity, yet his becoming president was more a result of Americans relishing a brash overconfident macho style than a cause of the 2016-20 decline in national nuance.

There's always been an anti-intellectual bent among many Americans. Or perhaps better put, an anti-reasonableness bent. We tend to distrust politicians who are open to changing their minds. The sentiment, "I was for it before I was against it," followed John Kerry around in his 2004 presidential campaign like a flip-flop death knell.

Nuance, though, also can be a matter of style. 

Usually it is those on the far left or far right who cling most tenaciously to ideological positions. However, there's not much difference between Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren when it comes to policies. But I view Warren as more nuanced because she has a gentler, more thoughtful speaking style than Sanders. 

(Unfortunately, this could be one reason why we've never had a female president, since women tend to rate higher on the Nuance Scale. Our taste in national leaders tends to run toward those who express themselves with the most outspoken certainty, though Obama's deliberate speaking style certainly didn't hurt him.)

I readily confess that when Trump was president, I relished hard-hitting attacks on the Idiot in Chief. I felt like firing crudities at Trump was justified when he couldn't open his mouth without insulting someone. Or an entire country. 

Now, though, I'm realizing how much we all have lost -- liberals and conservatives alike -- by engaging in rhetoric that fails to reflect the complex nuances of most issues. Moderation isn't just a valuable political perspective. It also points to the fact that often, if not usually, the nuanced truth lies in-between simplistic extremes.

One of the reasons I'm hooked on the Gabriel Allon character in Daniel Silva's thriller/espionage series is that Allon is a deeply nuanced Israeli assassin. Who in addition to being a highly skilled killer is one of the world's top restorers of damaged paintings.

In every book, Silva has "good guys" and "bad guys." But they aren't caricatures.

Allon has doubts. He makes mistakes. He tries to understand the motivations of the Muslims who want to do Jews and Israel harm. Often Silva presents Palestinians in a totally sympathetic manner, even though his main character is fiercely devoted to his work in the Israeli intelligence agency.

I also read more typical books in this genre. They can be more entertaining, yet not as satisfying, because Daniel Silva presents the reader with hugely more nuance.

This is akin to how I'm able to enjoy reading both People magazine and The New Yorker.

One entertains. The other feeds my hunger for nuance. The September 13, 2021 issue of The New Yorker beautifully reflected this. Three lengthy stories, all in the same issue, each presenting a complex issue in a wonderfully intelligent fashion.

"The Sex Wars: Feminism and its fault lines" is a seven-page discussion of how the single word feminism contains many shades of meaning I wasn't previously aware of. For example, the story told me about the debate in feminist circles over transgender people, with some feminists arguing that transgender females aren't truly women, while others vehemently disagree. 

And I hadn't realized that "butch lesbians" are looked down upon by certain feminists because they embrace a masculinity that pays homage to the patriarchy. Naturally other feminists consider that however women want to look and behave is up to them.

"The Other Afghan Women" is a marvelous twelve page look at how the American occupation of Afghanistan affected women in rural and urban areas much differently. While women in Kabul were enjoying modern liberal freedoms, women in the conservative countryside faced the chaos of war: drone strikes, bombardments, endless fighting.

Those rural women welcomed the return to order that came with the Taliban victory and the American withdrawal. It isn't that they don't want more rights; they just see that those rights need to come from within Islam, not from the barrel of an American gun.

"Force of Nature" asks in eleven pages, Can Kathryn Paige Harden convince the left that genes matter -- and the right that they're not everything? Harden is a brilliant psychology professor who earned tenure at age thirty-two. She specializes in behavior genetics, "which investigates the influence of genes on character traits (neuroticism, agreeableness) and life outcomes (educational attainment, income, criminality)."

Harden, a progressive, gets a lot of grief from academics who view any research into the effect of genes on one's success in life as racist, disgusting, even Gestapo-like. Yet she perseveres, because she knows that learning the truth is more important than clinging to an outmoded "nature vs. nurture" dichotomy. 

As with most things, studying behavioral reality requires a "both...and" mentality rather than a simplistic "either...or" outlook. In short, nuance.