Weekly update 02/07/26 to 02/13/26 (Work Progress, Drum Corps International, New Glasses, and EKG Results)

Things are going well at work. I now have FACTS communicating with the web and opening web pages. This is a big step forward.

Otherwise, last weekend was the Super Bowl. I, of course, did not watch, not even to see a Bad Bunny at the halftime show. The only reason I would have had to watch was that President Trump did not want me to. Personally, I have felt for a long time that the way the halftime show at the Super Bowl, something I have never seen, is handled, bringing in popular stars to perform, makes no sense.

This is supposed to be a halftime show, and as we all know, halftime shows are made up of marching bands. I strongly believe that the people who put on the Super Bowl should team up with www.dci.org, Drum Corps International.

If you have ever seen a highly polished marching performance that looks and sounds more like a professional production than a halftime show, you may have been watching a Drum Corps International performance.

Drum Corps International, commonly known as DCI, is the primary governing body for elite junior drum and bugle corps. Founded in 1972, it oversees a competitive summer circuit for performers typically between the ages of 16 and 21. These ensembles tour nationally and compete at a level often compared to professional sports leagues in terms of intensity, structure, and standards.

This is not a high school marching band. It is a specialized, audition-based activity with a national tour schedule and a championship system.

Each year, DCI bands compete to see which is the best band in the country. I think the top two bands from the competition should perform at the Super Bowl.

Some may wonder why I am so opposed to football, not just the Super Bowl. My distaste for football has its roots in the past. I think it all started when I was very young. My father, who was a huge Dodgers fan, often said he wanted to have 14 children so he could have his own baseball team. I am not certain why 14 was the number he chose, as a team’s active roster during the regular season is 26 players, not 14.

In any case, I have always been awkward, to the point that catching a baseball was very difficult for me, which disappointed my father. My mother tells me of long sessions that my father had with me, trying to teach me to play catch. Sessions where he would deliberately throw the ball at my face, hoping I would catch it. Instead, it would hit me in the face over and over again until he gave up, and I would go into the house crying and bleeding.

Of course, my coordination problems were not limited to baseball. When I was young, I wanted to play football. I convinced my parents to sign me up to play flag football at the park across the street. I gave it my all but was just too clumsy to play, and the coach told my mom that I simply could not play. They refunded the team fee, and I used it to take pottery classes, something I also lacked talent for.  This was very embarrassing for me, both football and pottery!

At heart, I have always been a pacifist, so the violence of football and the danger to the players have always concerned me.

I thought about writing an op-ed in high school about doing away with high school football, but I did not think it would be published. If it were, I would have been concerned about my personal safety, as opposing football would not have been popular.

I am such a pacifist. I remember in the 1970s, when Jack in the Box decided to be a more adult restaurant and stop catering to children, they started running commercials showing them blowing up the “Jack in the Box clown speaker.” I was so offended by these commercials that I boycotted Jack in the Box and would get upset with my parents when they took us there to eat.

Also this week, I got my first pair of new glasses. I am amazed at how much better I can see. Unfortunately, there was a problem with two of the pairs that was caught before shipping, which means I am still waiting for those glasses to arrive.

I also got the results from my three-day EKG. Everything was fine, with the exception of a frequent SVE rate. Medically speaking, an SVE, or supraventricular ectopic beat, is an extra heartbeat that originates in the atria, the upper chambers of the heart, rather than from the heart’s normal pacemaker. It is also commonly called a premature atrial contraction, or PAC. “Supraventricular” means the electrical impulse begins above the ventricles, and “ectopic” means it arises from an abnormal focus. On an EKG, an SVE appears as an early beat, usually followed by a brief pause before the normal rhythm resumes. Many people feel nothing at all, while others may notice a flutter or a sensation of a skipped beat. In otherwise healthy individuals, isolated SVEs are common and often benign, though higher frequencies can be associated with stress, sleep apnea, electrolyte imbalance, or underlying heart conditions.

This is not a big deal, and we will monitor it.

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