How I See It: Reflections on spirituality, technology, and the art of everyday life

 This week’s update covers the Artemis flight coverage, what “eclipses from space” actually mean, adjusting to new hearing aids, and a shift in my credit card strategy. The big item this week has to be the Artemis flight. For me, the strangest part of the coverage was hearing reports claiming this was the “first time humans have seen an eclipse from space.” I knew that was inaccurate. Based on what was described, the Sun moved behind the Earth, disappeared, and then reappeared, effectively a sunset followed by a sunrise. We see that every day. On the International Space Station , it happens about 16 times a day. There are other eclipse-related observations from space as well. Astronauts can observe lunar eclipses from orbit. They sometimes see partial solar eclipses. There are also images taken from the ISS showing the Moon’s shadow crossing the Earth during a total solar eclipse. None of this is new. In my research, Astra (ChatGPT) pointed out that one of the early documented e...

  Weekly Update 03/28/26 – 04/04/26 (hearing aids adjustment, Artemis II launch reflections, early memories and Gemini 8, accounting principles insight) Well, it has been a calm week. Not much is going on, just steady progress. This update continues my Weekly Update series, covering work, health, and a few reflections that came up along the way. Things at work are going fine. The biggest event of the week was getting my new hearing aids on Thursday. $5,000 for what are essentially earbuds. They seem to be working well. Frankly, I do not notice much difference, but I was not the one noticing the problem. Other people were complaining that I could not hear them.   The one place I did notice a change was when backing up the car. The alert tone sounds different. The higher range notes that I could not hear before are now audible. It is also useful to be able to listen to things without bothering anyone by streaming directly to them. Another major event happened on Wednesda...

Weekly Update 03/21/26 – 03/27/26 (Xfinity Billing Issues, Internet Outages, Dental Treatment Decisions) This weekly update covers ongoing issues with my Xfinity internet service, including repeated disconnections caused by billing errors, as well as a dental consultation that resulted in decisions about upcoming procedures. As part of my ongoing Weekly Update series, this post documents both the technical and personal challenges encountered during the week. Things are going well. The biggest thing this week has been a ridiculous battle I have been going through with Xfinity. A few weeks ago, I needed to upgrade my internet service to an unlimited data plan. The plan I was on had a limit of 1.2 TB per month, and I had gone over that limit two months in a row. So I needed an unlimited plan. I checked around, thinking about changing providers from Xfinity to something else, perhaps back to CenturyLink. What I found out shocked me. Back in the 1990s, I had a choice for high-speed in...

Weekly Update 03/14/26 – 03/20/26 (Work Progress, Hearing Loss, Healthcare Navigation, Personal Reflections) This week’s update covers progress at work, ongoing medical recovery, hearing changes and next steps, navigating primary care access, and a few reflections tied to personal history and current events as part of the ongoing Weekly Update series. This has been a good week. Things at work are going well. I’m learning a lot. We have a new person, what they call a Product Owner, for FACTS. From what I’ve seen, this is the person responsible for handling our project. But I still report to James. Medically, my foot is continuing to heal. I’m taking it easy on it, constantly. OK, I take it off for showering and changing clothes; otherwise, even when I sleep, it’s on. I’m wearing a special shoe to protect the foot after surgery, though my foot is just broken. It’s a little awkward as the special shoe is shorter than the normal shoe on the other foot. Also, now when I walk, it sound...

St. Patrick, the Patron Saint of Ecological Disasters!   According to legend, St. Patrick drove all the snakes out of Ireland and into the sea. According to the story, he chased the snakes away after they attacked him while he was fasting on a hill.   Of course, in our modern age we recognize this for what it was: a massive ecological disaster. Not only polluting the sea with snakes, but also removing a beneficial predator from the ecosystem. This supposedly happened in the 5th century. Who knows, the absence of snakes, if they existed at all, might even have contributed to the Great Potato Famine of the 19th century.   Today we understand that ecology is a balance that humanity is usually better off living with rather than drastically altering. All of God's creatures have a role to play.   Perhaps Patrick never heard the story Ramakrishna told in the 19th century about the snake and the holy man.   A holy man passed through a village where a poisonous snake liv...

Weekly Update 03/ 07/ 26 – 03/ 13/ 26 ( Broken Foot Diagnosis, Workplace Scam Attempt, Daylight Saving Time History) Weekly update covering a foot fracture diagnosis, a workplace impersonation scam attempt, and the history behind daylight saving time. I have good news and bad news. The good news is my toe is not broken. The bad news is that my foot is. A couple of weeks ago I was walking out of my bedroom when I managed to catch my pinky toe on the metal leg of my bed. It hurt terribly, and I was concerned that I might have broken my toe. The pain subsided as the day went on, but it still hurt to walk on uneven ground or put on my shoes. Since there is not much that can be done for a broken toe, I just let it heal. A couple of days later, I was stepping into the shower when I stubbed the same toe on the edge of the tub. Again, the pain was severe and then subsided as the day went on. A few days after that, I accidentally kicked a shoe that was on the floor and the pain came back again....