Reasons to Risk Death by Surgery

When Dr. Farivar sat down with my wife and I in August, 2023 to discuss a double bypass and the risks herein contained, it was a daunting list of things that might go wrong.  At the end I said I would rather die than continue living with so many limitations caused by cardiac insufficiency. 

One of the reasons was being limited to walking 1000 feet. I suppose if I was one of those retirees who does not cover 1000 feet between refrigerator; car, and TV remote, this might be tolerable  

Another is cold air.  I just came in from looking at the Orion Nebula.   It is still an awesome sight through Big Bertha.  One Thanksgiving several years ago, going out in freezing weather led to me calling 911 at 2:00 AM because of left arm pain.  It was nothing critical but calling 911 before waking my wife got me in trouble.  There is an unwritten rule (hence why it was unknown to me) that you should never wake up to paramedics in the living room.

It is really cold out there but even dressed in a dress shirt, khakis, parka,  and hiking boots was okay.  It was not really pleasant; more like bracing.  You appreciate both gloves and why you would prefer being able to make adjustments without them.

One little frustration which is I think this the first time I have noticed enough to take note of it: mirror collimation really needs one bright flashlight .

The first step in collimation a Newtonian mirror is putting the laser collimator in the eyepiece tube and making sure the beam hits the center of the mirror.   This almost never happens right at the start.   You turn the collimation screws on the diagonal mirror holder until the beam hits either the red dot of nail polish or more ideally a round notebook paper reinforcing circle at the center of the mirror.  But the laser is almost always red and seeing if you are at near the center in low light is really hard.  A bright white flashlight does wonders.