The Thermodynamics of Menopause

Kellie’s hot flashes continue unabated, repeating every 45 minutes as they have done for the past three years. That’s like getting burned at the stake 35,000 times. Each attack turns her into a hot, sweaty mess. It's then quickly followed by a rapid drop in temperature that leaves her cold and clammy. Watching her repeated heating and cooling cycles got me wondering about the thermodynamics of a hot flash: how much heat energy gets released in each episode? It shouldn’t be too hard to calculate. We only need three pieces of information: the specific heat capacity for skin, the skin temperature change during a hot flash, and the mass of the flesh getting roasted.

Self-help

Like many other Americans pursuing a personal improvement project, I headed straight to the self-help section of the nearest Barnes & Noble, only to discover that we are a seriously troubled nation. Maybe we’re just more afflicted here in Southern California, but there's more shelf space devoted to tomes on fixing our lives than any other genre. Overwhelmed by choices, I soon realized that I needed a self-help book just to help me find a self-help book that might truly be helpful. 

The Twilight Zone

Photo credit

Submitted for your approval. After cruising the Caribbean during the New Year’s Holiday, a family of four spends the night together in a single hotel room in downtown Fort Lauderdale. Though they share a common room, each family member experiences a completely different reality as they retire for the evening and enter their own personal corner of . . . The Twilight Zone.

Unleash the Hounds

“I hate my bras.” 

Is she talking to me? There’s no one else here so she must be talking to me. It wasn’t an actual question so maybe I’m not supposed to say anything; maybe this is one of those times when I’m just supposed to just shut up and listen. Uh-oh, can’t resist the urge to respond. 

“Then get new ones, dear.” 

That was good; my reply was short, responsive to the problem at hand and neutral. I should be safe.

He used to be a Mormon

Kellie, recovering nicely

It had been over five weeks since our Caribbean cruise and Kellie was suffering from severe vacation withdrawal, so I stuffed her in the car and speed off to Palm Springs for a medicinal vacation. 

At our hotel there was a large group of swingers who put on an afternoon, poolside show. We missed some of the best performances because the day before we arrived management had asked the troupe to keep their displays G-rated. The free outdoor entertainment was great but the free in-room coffee forced us to make daily trips to Starbucks.
 

It's a Little Chilly Here

This morning I told Kellie that she’s failing in her primary duty as my muse for this blog. I also speculated as to the cause: insufficient sex. I don’t know if my diagnosis is correct, but even if it's wrong, how much harm could an accidental overdose cause? Kellie refuses to render the requisite medical assistance unless, as judged by her, my behavior improves. She’s unhappy about the resumption of our long running heat battle.

Cruising, Grandmothers, and Vibrators

As long time readers of Living in Kellie’s World are well aware, Kellie loves taking cruises. We normally go alone, but during our last voyage over the New Year holiday, we invited family and friends to accompany us. In all, our group totaled 16 people and included our mothers. To take advantage of every available discount and credit offered by the cruise line, Kellie assigned us to staterooms in a manner that would produce the greatest cost savings. Consequently, our reservations had me sharing a stateroom with my mother and Kellie was listed as sharing a stateroom with her mom. This arrangement would obviously deprive me of one of the prime benefits of taking Kellie on vacation, so once we were aboard, Kellie went to the purser's office to switch room assignments while I began settling into the cabin that had I assumed would be ours. But I was wrong, as usual, and had to gather the few things I had unpacked to switch rooms with our mothers who were in the adjacent cabin.

Balance

Photo Credit

It’s now approaching two months since my last post and several friends have asked me what happened to Living in Kellie’s World. Let’s just say that I’ve been a bit distracted. I’ve been spending so much time learning the alphabet soup of technologies necessary to become a web developer (PHP, HTML, CSS, MYSQL, JAVA, APACHE, JASON, JQUERY, AJAX,  OAUTH, CURL and whatever else I find required) that I’ve neglected my blog. Whenever I embark upon a new enterprise, I tend to pursue it to the exclusion of almost everything else. This is an easy trap for someone with obsessive-compulsive tendencies, and I succumb to it frequently. During the first year following my retirement I dedicated myself to getting a teaching credential. After completing all the necessary coursework with 4.0 GPA, I decided to forgo the teaching and began blogging. I then proceeded to drive my family and friends nuts with incessant entreaties to read and share my posts. Eventually, the blogging was displaced by my latest obsession: web development. 

Old Guys Rule

Guarding the gate to
Old Dubrovnik.

An old man who had been eying Kellie from across the aisle walked up to her as she was examining melons in the produce section of a supermarket. She’s been a bit wary of older men ever since an uncomfortable encounter she had with an elderly gentleman in Croatia back in 2009. Kellie had been standing near the eastern gate in the stone wall that ringed the old city of Dubrovnik, gawking at the guard protecting the city entrance, when an old man ambled up to her and began speaking. Not knowing Croatian, Kellie could’t understand a thing he said, but his words were soft and gentle, and she smiled and nodded while struggling to comprehend his message. Kellie said it felt like a farther-daughter moment – right up to the point where he reached out and grabbed a handful of breast. “Nooooo!” Kellie shrieked.

Emergency Blow

Well it looks like Living in Kellie's World has taken a little detour into my past life as a submariner. Here's a brief followup to yesterday's story.

Michael, from DearHarrison.com, asked if angles and dangles grab your stomach the same way a roller coaster does. Sadly, no.  However, you can simulate a short roller coaster drop by grabbing a blanket and sliding down a passageway when the ship takes a large angle. The practice is strongly discouraged since flesh typically looses in a collision with pipes and machinery . 

While it won't put your stomach in your throat, conducting an emergency blow is definitely and E-ticket ride. During an emergency blow, high pressure air is rapidly dumped into the  main ballast tanks to make the ship positively buoyant. The result is essentially an uncontrolled ascent to the surface. The following is a Navy promotional video of a Virginia Class fast attack submarine. At about the 28 second point you'll see a clip of submarine breaking the surface following an emergency blow. I get goosebumps just watching it. Enjoy.