Glen Lipka

I have a terrible affliction called “Old”.  It is fairly common for people born before 1975. The symptoms are fairly broad.  Weakness in the joints, inability to heal quickly, weight gain, hair loss and vision degradation, just to name a few.  Seriously, this thing is worse than any disease I have ever heard of.  Many people have died of “Old”!  Each year, more and more people are afflicted.

So far, there is no cure.  You can only manage “Old”. For example, I was looking at the ingredients of a sports drink for my kid over the weekend.  The small text was giving me a headache and was difficult to read.  I happened to be near a rack of reading glasses, so I grabbed one and put them on.  The text grew in size and came into focus. I sat down and realized, “Old” has struck again.

When I was a child, I wore regular glasses.  I had approximately 20/60 vision.  Then in 1997, I had LASIK surgery on my eyes.  It was a bit expensive, but I thought it was the best money I have ever spent.  My vision was perfect after the surgery and has only degraded slightly over the years.

LASIK does not improve reading vision.  It reshapes the cornea to put distance objects in focus.  Reading vision requires the muscles around your eyes to be flexible and they do the focusing for you.  Unfortunately, my eye muscles have “Old” and are less flexible. Thus, I need to get glasses again for reading.

I’ve read about some solutions including have one eye focused short while the other eye focuses long.  I am unsure if I like this option. More research is required.

Do you have “Old”? What symptoms have you been experiencing?  It sucks, doesn’t it?

I play alot of tennis. It is my favorite pastime and I feel I am pretty good at it. MY USTA level is 4.0. The best part of my game is my serve. This is virtually the only physical exercise I get on a weekly basis.

Last September, I played mixed doubles one fateful night.  The next day, my wrist hurt.  I had to play again in the Sectional Playoffs, so I gobbled up Advil and wrapped the wrist in a brace.  That was painful, but tolerable.

Since the playoffs were over, I allowed my wrist to heal.  October…November…December.  Why wasn’t it healing?  I started to ask my doctors at Kaiser Permanente. The first doctor said it was a sprain and would take a few weeks.  The second doctor said it was a sprain and it could take a few months.  Then I got an xRAY and MRI.  The last doctor eliminated all other possibilities (like occult ganglions and torn ligaments).  he said it was a sprain and might take up to a year to heal.

How could such divergent healing schedules be told to me?  It seems like they were just randomly picking a date in the future and hoping I stop bothering them.

I tried to play again by taping up the wrist and using a brace.  Not only was my game terrible, but the pain lasted about a week. (My game dropped to roughly 3.0 level)  The last doctor said that if I push it, I could end up with a rupture and much more serious injury.

I am left in a quandary.  I can’t play and currently get no exercise.  The doctor has given me no course of action other than to stop playing.  I am using a gyro ball as a form of physical therapy. I have no idea when I should start playing.

If this continues, I am considering getting a ball machine and practicing lefty.  I wonder how long it would take me to get to 3.0 or 3.5 level as a lefty.

Growing old sucks.  Hair falls out.  You get fat. Your body started to fail.  Excema.  Ugh. Even if I heal, I likely will have to wear a wrist brace for the rest of my life.  Thanks Old Age.

I’m not a big fan of the personality tests like Myers Briggs and Colors.  I feel like I could answer the questions either way almost every single time. Also, I feel like the results are always generalities like “You have a long ‘love-line'” that you get in palm reading. I’m a skeptic and believe I am a unique snowflake.  However, I did the tests anyway.

From the Myers Briggs test, this is my result:

• Slight preference of Introversion over Extraversion (11%)
• Distinct preference of Intuition over Sensing (75%)
• Slight preference of Feeling over Thinking (12%)
• Moderate preference of Perceiving over Judging (33%)

The text didn’t seem that accurate to me.  I don’t know what any of it means.

On the other hand, I recently did the 5 Dynamics test.  It was very short, lasting under five minutes.  I tried to relax and go with the gag.  The results were much more accurate.  I showed it to some peers and they all think it nailed me to a tee.  One person was laughing and said, “They must have been stalking you!”

Here is my “5 dynamics energy map”.

It basically says I am “effortless” at everything except EXAMINE.

Examine definition: Drafting a detailed plan, to analyze data, and anticipate what could go wrong. “Someone who enjoys planning, the details, and finding mistakes.”

In looking at the details there are items that resonate strongly with me and some that feel slightly off.  It’s funny, on the first reading it felt 100% accurate, but a week later, I saw many flaws in the details.  I think one reads these things with a leaning to hear what they want to hear.

If you are interested and/or would like to psychoanalyze me, feel free to read my full results.

So, even though 5Dynamics seems accurate, I am still fairly skeptical.  I’d like to see other people’s results and not rely just on a single data point.

I spent a few minutes filling in the early archives of Commadot.com, specifically 1996-1997.  My predictions were sometimes incredibly accurate and other times … not so much. My writing style was also fairly immature. My spelling was atrocious.  The worst thing was the font: Comic Sans.  What was I thinking?

It brought back some memories and made me think about the last 18 years.  Time has a way of changing the facts.  For example: I can’t find any blogging by me between 1998-2004.  I can’t believe I didn’t blog for 6 years, but I can’t seem to find it anywhere. I think I just didn’t blog for that period. Time has changed my memory and filled in that gap.

I hope that I continue to blog for a long time.  It sharpens my writing skills and acts as a creative outlet.  It forces me to think, “What was interesting today?”  Not as easy as you might think. In the past year, I’ve encouraged a few people to try blogging.  It has not been easy for Anna or Penny. I hope they stick with it though.

My first blog entries were made by hand using Notepad and then Homesite.  Later (in 2004), I switched to Blogger, which was purchased by Google. Finally, I switched to WordPress in 2006.  The technology is getting better and better. WordPress is an absolute dream from a UX standpoint.

I wonder what 2015 will bring.  I wonder what the next 18 years will bring. I am excited for the future.

All I know is that the Jets will win the Superbowl next year.  You heard it here first.