New and Old Stuff

In the last two Friday Notes posts [one and two] I mentioned spending March and April in getting stuff done mode (a change from my lazy retirement) but, other than a picture of my new couch, haven’t written much about it.

In part because I keep boundaries between online and Real Life™; in part because much of it is trivial (except to me); and in part because I didn’t have room in those Notes posts. (I am a man of many parts.)

However, one new thing is the opposite of trivial.

A couple of old things first:

📌 Today is Tau Day (and I’m a τ’ist). It’s a great excuse to order twice the pi(e).

In my case (not liking cooked fruit), pizza pie. Which works out nicely because (as shown above) you can get one with a traditional red sauce (and pepperoni and sausage) and one with a white sauce, such as Alfredo or Parmesan/Garlic (and chicken or ham).

I’ve posted here about pi and tau a number of times [see all these posts] and have nothing new to add here. Happy Tau Day!

📌 Thirteen days ago today I walked out of work for the last time and became, for the first time in my life, a truly free person (at least as free as it’s possible to be in our society; there are always obligations and relationships).

Childhood is close to being free. You don’t usually have many worries or concerns beyond your own fun. But you’re a kid with parents who control vast swaths of your life. Then you become student with scholastic obligations. Summers might be freer, especially as you get older, but sometimes there’s summer school or organized sports to tie you down.

As you finally escape schooling, and sometimes during it, you become a wage-earner. Summers off become a thing of the past. Now you get vacation time (or sometimes not so much).

When you retire there are no parents, teachers, or bosses creating obligations. At least in my case. For some the caretaker roles swap, and they care for parents. For many others, there are spouses and/or children. A less free retirement, but still probably freer than at any other time of your life.

The number-watcher in me is amused by my retirement in 2013 and it being my 13th retirement anniversary. A little numerical consonance there.

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Long-time readers may recall that I suffer from a lifelong hearing deficit. It was never diagnosed in my childhood because parents and doctors were more prone to letting things slide. Cost would have been an issue for us back then, too, so there wasn’t a big incentive to correct less visible and seemingly less limiting problems.

I don’t think I helped matters. As young space cadet happily navigating my mental inner world, I was clueless that hearing tests — unlike other kinds of tests — are not things you are supposed to ace. Back then audiologists didn’t make an effort to conceal their actions, so by watching the doctor I could tell when I was supposed to be hearing a tone and react.

My hearing chart must have looked weird.

By junior high school my lack of hearing became apparent to teachers, and for a while they had me trying to learn lip reading. But the visiting teacher was a very attractive young woman with large breasts, and I was too distracted to learn anything. I’d never seen anyone who looked like that before (we’d just moved to beauty-conscious Southern California from the far more casual Minnesota).

In high school and college there was loud rock and roll that likely made things worse. Fortunately, I got good enough at figuring out what was going on around me to fake my way. There was much that was unheard or misheard, though. It was always an annoyance for me (and others) but as a loner, it wasn’t as debilitating as it might have been. It wasn’t a problem that begged for a solution.

It’s an interesting question how much of my introversion comes from being aurally isolated. I’m one of those for whom being alone isn’t a problem, it’s a preference.

[I was astonished at the sociology experiment that discovered many would prefer to receive electrical shocks than spend 15 minutes alone with their own thoughts. On the other hand, it confirmed what I’d long suspected about the cavernous emptiness inside far too many skulls.]

There came a time in the mid-1990s where I was due to start teaching an in-company class in computer programming (using the C language). I knew I’d need to be able to hear my students, so I went in for a hearing test and had hearing aids prescribed.

That was a game changer. Walked outside after getting them and heard birds for the first time (other than on TV through cranked-up headphones).

It was great, but there were issues:

• Worked great in quiet conditions but less well in noisy or outdoor conditions (like in a busy restaurant or when camping).
• Batteries were a pain. Once activated, they lasted seven days whether used or not. And they weren’t inexpensive nor always readily available.
• A single drop of water hitting them would disable them and require a week of drying out in a bed of rice. Made being in a boat or the rain risky.
• My ears didn’t like being plugged all day. It eventually led to chronic ear infections that migrated to chronic sinus infections.
• I got feedback squeaks anytime something came too near my ear. Made using the telephone hard.
• They were fragile. The battery door fell off one. And I tapped one too hard on the table, and it shattered into pieces.

I think I still have the unbroken one somewhere, but I stopped wearing them many years ago. Being a retired loner, the only issue is not being able to hear when someone is at my door (Bluetooth headphones let me hear the TV or music players). When I’m expecting friends, I leave the door unlocked, and they know to just walk in.

[I’ve long been bemused by the sitcom mode where neighbors and friends just walk in (Kramer on Seinfeld perhaps being a particularly irritating canonical example). FWIW, I’ve come to believe that decades of sitcoms have poisoned our culture, but that’s another post.]

The one situation where not hearing has been a pain is when I’m having food delivered (which I don’t do often) or expecting a service call.

However, through it all, I’ve become increasingly and painfully aware that I can’t hear shit. For example, at a gathering of the friends, I can be between two people on either ends of the group, they’re having a conversation, but I hear nothing. It isn’t that I can’t make out the words; I can’t hear the words. I only know they’re talking because I can see their lips moving. Likewise, if we’re all watching TV or listening to music. I can hear the murmur of it and am amazed how well they hear it.

It was getting pretty old. Years of loud music and living through headphones, plus aging now, has made it ever worse.

For years, I’ve been getting snail mail flyers from the local audiologist, and for years I’ve though, “I really should avail myself,” but the need just never rose high enough. I knew hearing aids would be expensive, and the problem was (mostly) manageable. But always kept the most recent flyer in my TODO pile.

Turning 70 was the inspiration to at long last get off my ass and do this. If nothing else, I wanted to find out just how deaf I was. For years I’ve been saying I was probably “legally deaf” (if such a thing exists).

It doesn’t. Instead, there’s a “Severe Hearing Loss” category that reflects a handicap, and I’m just on the border:

The red line is my right ear; the blue line is my left. Severe hearing loss is the purple line and below. Normal hearing is the green line and above.

So, yeah, I’m more than “a bit hard of hearing”. I’m in the “can’t hear shit” category. The good news is that my ears are essentially the same.

Which I kinda knew, but now it’s confirmed.

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It turns out my putting this off worked out in my favor. Very recent advanced in hearing aid technology — including the use of Ai — have eliminated most of the items on the bullet list above:

• Because of the Ai, these work great in nearly all situations. And the Ai is self-adjusting, so no need for presets for specific situations.
• Rechargeable batteries good for over 20 hours (so, just like my phone, they need charging every night; no biggie). And the charger has its own battery that can charge the hearing aids if you’re on the road without access to electricity.
• Water resistant! My audiologist said don’t go swimming with them, but being in the rain, no problem.
• I still don’t love having things in my ears all day but there’s no way around it.
• The Ai makes these much less prone to feedback. It recognizes it and shuts it down, so the most I get is quick faint squeaks.
• Very robust!

These also have some nice benefits:

• Control them from my phone. My iPhone alone can talk to them, but there’s an app expressly for them (though it actually doesn’t add that much to what the phone can do on its own). There’s a volume control, but also a simple three-band equalizer (low, mid, high).
• I can stream audio (music, podcasts, whatever) to them as if they were ear buds. Streaming audio volume and equalizer is separate from the hearing aid microphones. I can reduce, even mute, the surrounding sound while I listen to music!
• The audio of phone calls can go directly to them, which makes using the phone amazing. I used to dread phone calls. No longer! (I will say that my Apple iPhone is the best phone I’ve ever owned in terms of being able to hear the call.)
• There’s a sneaky “spy mode” where you can switch the microphones from the hearing aids behind your ears to your phone. Then you can leave the room and your phone sitting on the table will pick up what people are saying behind your back. (The intended use is lectures where, for whatever reason, the hearing aids just aren’t doing the job. You can put your phone up on or near the podium to hopefully better hear the lecture.)

So, pretty cool but more importantly an awesome life-change.

It’s not all roses and chocolates, though. My neighbor’s barking dog is much more of an irritant and so are the fans I have running around the place. There’s a whole world of sounds my brain is learning to tune out; it never had to before.

Even watching TV is a lot more enjoyable. Not to mention going to the movies! Shortly after getting the hearing aids, I went to see Project Hail Mary a second time just to see how they did. Very well; I heard nearly all the dialog. Not all, but I understand from others that movie dialog is very badly mixed these days. Many with normal hearing complain they can’t hear the dialog through the music and sound effects.

[The first time I saw it, I knew going it I wouldn’t hear any dialog, but I’d just read the book, so I figured I could keep up. I saw it a third time when I took my buddy and his wife to see it. Excellent book and best movie I’ve seen in a while!]

But the big thing is being able to communicate effectively with strangers in shops or offices and, most of all, with my friends. Of all the TODO list items I knocked off, this one is the home run.

Funny consequence, though. Over the years my friends have learned to speak up when talking to me. Now they have to learn to speak down.

The other funny difference is that I used to never know if music I was playing was too loud for others or for the situation (my neighbor once called the cops on me because my music was too loud). Now my problem is that I’m not sure if what I’m playing is loud enough for others. The hearing aids make everything sound very loud to me. My audiologist turned me on to a decibel measuring app for my phone. That’s been very useful in setting my music and TV volume.

And it’s downright hysterical how low my volume knobs are compared to where they used to be. Used to be TV volume at 70% I could just barely hear but knew was too loud. Now 20% to 30% is a good range.

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I previously mentioned my new couch. I also have a premium custom-made Norwegian recliner on order (should be here in early August). I ordered a dark chocolate leather that should match the couch. I’m looking forward to having a good TV-watching and reading chair again.

I had a cherished pair of Swedish recliners for many years, but the welds on their support frames eventually gave way.

[Poor design, actually. The weight of the chair and occupant was supported only by two hollow bars welded to the swiveling upright post on the base. Rather than a single solid bar passing through the upright, each was separate and just welded on. So, all the weight was concentrated at those welds and in a direction almost certain to eventually pull them apart. Which is exactly what happened.]

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New stuff is fun, and there’s more to write about, but I think that’s enough for this time. I still have a couple TODO items left, so I may hold off until I get those done. Or not, because there really is rather a lot of new stuff.

There is also a decidedly weird new wrinkle on an old situation, but it’s different enough (and weird enough) to deserve its own post. Now I’ll just say: people can be damned odd.

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Stay new, my friends! Go forth and spread beauty and light.

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