Health and .... Spaceships ?

Hello everyone,

Another week ! And it's been a hot one this week, changing into heavy thunderstorms ... They hit here on Thursday evening (I think) and they were shaking the windows ...

I was rather relieved when the weather did break, because the heat was being a massive struggle. I don't handle heat particularly well, probably a symptom of tending more to the hyperactive side (although I've been really struggling for energy as well lately).

That drawing above happened rather quickly on Wednesday over a lunchtime when I was really feeling the heat. My temperature gauge is back down to 46 degrees C now, it was hitting 49 earlier in the week and it's still feeling a little warm to wear more than shorts and a t-shirt. The usual comfy temperature is about 43 degrees C.

That's not the actual room temperature, it's the readout from the graphics card so it's a little above ambient. It's a decent readout though. Most of the time, the card is sitting idle and isn't doing much so it steadies out to something indicative of how relatively warm it is. When it's working for games, it'll go up to the 70s. The processor temperature isn't a good indicator, it goes up and down quite a lot as the processor suddenly switches into doing work.

It was good seeing England turn the cricket around last week, although this week's game will go to a draw tomorrow because most of the available time has been lost to rain.

Back to health - I'm struggling a bit at the moment. Some of that is down to work and reasons I won't go in to here. We're still working from home by the way, we have been since the situation erupted in March. Apart from printing, we have the facilities we need and the network has held up pretty much all the time. Switching to working from home hasn't affected us that much. But the situation as a whole at the moment is interfering with getting things done, which is contributing to stress levels.

I don't like expressing when I'm in the struggle mode, although sometimes you do have to just say "I am really stressed at the moment" so that it's registered when all other signals are normal. And the struggle signals don't translate very well over the computer screen.

I'm struggling in other ways as well :
Not much internet spaceships happened this weekend because I've been suffering not just from wrist pain but also spasms. That's not a good sign. So the last time I flew was Thursday. I've opened up Battletech again and have been enjoying the tactical battles in that.
My back has decided to come out on strike as well. I have an old injury from cricket which never properly healed. It's in my left lumbar area and affects my left leg. So after that flared on Friday, I've been slightly restricted in movement and I'm attempting to not aggravate it further by keeping twisting movements to a minimum.
I've been getting pins and needles and numbness in my right arm too with some activities, which is usually a sign that my shoulder isn't in the right place.

And there's probably a few more issues as well. The back isn't critical at the moment but you have to listen to those warning signs. The wrist is probably critical and I need to actually pay heed to those warning signs. I haven't been in Final Fantasy XIV since last week, not sure when I can go back in.

I have a Lego Lunar Lander as well which hasn't gone together yet. The hot weather would have been a good excuse there as it doesn't include making heat like the games do. But it involves twisting (to get stuff out of bags) and fine hand movements ... so it'll stay in the box for a bit.

But it's not all doom and gloom. I do have a few screenshots to show this week (plus there's the dwagon up above) ...

Towel of Space was still doing well but I've switched to another ship now. A mining session with Towel of Space needed about 4 hours to pull in 256t plus another 10 in the refinery. Here is the new one :

She's the Hand of Caledorn. The new plan was a smaller ship, with more collectors to speed things up. A mining session is about 2 hours in this one, bringing in 192t plus the 10 in the refinery. The quicker mining rate is an answer to the problem of the wrist ... and because 4 hour sessions after putting the work laptop away were making dinner be a bit late :-D.

There we go ... mining collectors at work. It's a very compromised fit for a number of reasons but it's doing the job pretty well.

Looks good in the dark too.

Still enjoying the game ... plus mining is being a somewhat cathartic activity with a definite result at the end of it. Lots of money coming in. Battletech has been good too and Motorsport Manager. I have a Horizon Zero Dawn video on in another tab at the moment and that one is incredibly tempting ... but I'll save acquiring that for when I've finished The Outer Worlds (on break due to wrist), played Prey and maybe looked at Alien Isolation.

And when I'm looking to give the back issues and wrist issues a rest, I have the streams and videos to watch. Plus scifi stuff to watch too :
Star Trek Discovery - I enjoyed watching season 1 again as much as the first time, including looking for things they set up early that had big payoffs later.
Lost In Space - watching s2. Interesting ... not the best stuff but it's been holding the attention.
Umbrella Academy - watching s1. Curious again. It indulges in Netflix's tendencies to make things a bit bloody though.

Hope you've all been having great weekends. Mine has mostly been looking outside to see if it's raining, keeping an eye on the lightning tracker, watching Stuff. It was good to see World Endurance Championship back on again, although there's little doubt in who wins there at the moment.

Before I close up this post which discloses some of my struggles, my message is :

It's ok to struggle. Especially at the moment. These are extraordinary times. The equivalences would be the two World Wars (ok, not that bad) and the Spanish Flu pandemic. It's not over yet, not by a long shot. The long term effects on we who live through it won't be apparent for a long time.

I've got a few communities and people that I can reach out to and talk about my issues. Hopefully you have those outlets as well and that you can pay it forward by helping out other people as well.

We can get through this ... perhaps not together in person but we have this virtual world now that comes to us over the internet. It's a big help.

Hang in there everyone. Stay safe, be well.