Hi Everyone,

My experience with the virus has been a bit odd. Mostly, it has mostly not affected me as I am in home isolation due to my medical situation (awaiting liver transplant), but I am also greatly affected as any further steps in my treatment have been paused.

For example, as a final stop to prepare for surgery I needed an anigiogram but no one was doing them. We finally managed to get in for one (quite odd waking up in an empty hospital ward) but it was pretty stressful as it ate up a 3 week window when a potential donor may have been available.

Based on my O- blood type and chemistry the donor pool is pretty small. My one brother was just notified that his apnea makes him unsuitable so we are moving on to testing my sister which takes 6-8 weeks. Oddly enough, I come from an adoptive family and we are not bio related but do have an initial match. Regardless, there is only about 20% chance of her being suitable so looking for a healthy liver is still my full time job.

My team is located at Toronto General, which is literally the best place in the world for living donor transplants. (And 4th best in world overall.) 800 performed so far with no major donor complications. As the liver grows back to full size and function in about 2-3 months I am really just looking for a loan!

As one part of my efforts, I have set up a website (savedanslife.com or .ca) that has had 40K or so unique visitors so far. Awareness if nothing else is a very good thing.

My team has also suggested, and I agreed, to get on the list for a Hep C liver from a deceased donor if one becomes available before a live donor is cleared. Experimental surgery but the theory is I would be way better off with a dead diseased liver than the way I am living right now.

I had no idea how important the liver is and it is almost totally debilitating when it fails. I intended to keep updating hubski on the reg but after I get my other shit done I just don't have the energy. I went for a one hour power walk three days ago and I am still hurting! Ridiculous. lol

Hope things are going well for you all of you! sgfc

Name: sgfc

Location: Canada

Geez my first account here (sgfc) is almost 7 years old. And I have not posted or commented in a very long time.

I quit drinking and dropped 40 pounds to 155 now. My body has been my enemy since May and a medical situation gave me the kick in the ass to start changing.

Stopping booze was easy even though I admittedly am a die hard alkie. Average evening would be 15 to 20 units for 15 years. I miss booze and I miss hanging out with fun drunks. The social aspect has been the biggest hurdle for me. For example, I was invited to a 4 day trip to Nashville. Never been there and would love to go and hang out in bars listening to music all day. How does one do that without drinking? How could anyone possibly want to listen to country music for hours without drinking? I don't know.

Still the primary caregiver for my Mom with advanced Alzheimers. What a shit show that is. She is sure that she hates me. Her body is steady but her brain is lost. There is no exit strategy that will not be heart-breaking. Ugh.

My mood is also very different. In a good way. From sometimes not sleeping for a couple of days, to at least 5 solid hours every night. Sleep is good. Energy way up. Productivity way up. Down to 2 cigs a day and headed towards zero. Have been taking CBD drops twice a day and smoking THC before bed. Feels good man.

I've never owned a truck. So I am buying truck. I have always been a Honda and Mercedes car guy so it will be a significant change but I need a vehicle now that will be more rugged and get me wherever I want to go in any weather. More specifically, I need to able to get to a hospital in Toronto on a few hours notice no matter the depth of the snow.

I have really been tied down looking after my mother who has advanced Alzheimers so I have not had a vacation in years. Now that I have run into some serious health issues, I have had to create some space for me to work on me alone and so moved her into a long-term care home just this morning. I promised her I would do everything but wipe her ass and I failed. I have never had a goal in my life that was so important, that I worked for years on without success but here it is. Yes I know all the reasons I did not fail but that is how I feel.

I have decided to not work until I am better and thus need something to take me on adventures to the greatest extent that it can until my circumstances change.

Working really hard on changing to a low stress attitude and lifestyle. I just want to go to the desert solo and do yoga for the winter and I even have to retrain my brain to not rush that, cause it aint going to happen for a while if at all. I have a great sense of urgency that I have to tamp down.

If I have the opportunity in the spring I would like to turn the truck into a full off-road, off-grid unit (solar, thermal, kitchen, bathroom, etc.) and GTFO on a very long road trip. Fingers crossed.

Important to note that this raid was approved by Trump appointees so can not be a witch hunt.

The probable cause apparently was found by Mueller's team who then consulted with Trump appointed senior members at the DOJ who agreed it should be passed onto the FBI in New York.

FBI NY would confer with the highly respected Southern District of NY (SDNY) DA office. The Trump appointed SDNY DA must have signed off on an application to a judge. The judge must have concluded that there was probable cause a crime had been committed. The fact that it is a lawyer's office raises the standard even further. Cohen's office is in Trump Tower and his only client is Trump so this likely relates to Trump. Solicitor-client privilege does not apply to communications in furtherance of a crime-fraud.

My understanding is that one of the investigations relates to bank fraud. I am going to guess that he did not obtain his line of credit by telling the Bank he wanted to use the money to pay off a porn star.

Another investigation relates to a election finance violation so my guess would be an illegal contribution by the payment. Any communications with Trump about these issues may fit within the crime-fraud exception and may possibly be used to indict/impeach Trump.

But who knows. This guy is slippery as fuck for some reason. I doubt his base cares and the GOP may not either.

p. s. > Mr. Cohen began his career as a personal injury lawyer and taxi fleet manager.

lol

Outside of the Canadian residential schools system this is the first time I have heard an adopted child frame their experience as one of victimization. I know a lot of adopted kids, including all of my siblings. 2 out of 3 of my siblings would say it turned out great.

My parents thought they were unable to have biological children and in 1964 a priest approached my Mom and asked her if her and my Dad (who are white) would be interested in adopting from an orphanage in the slums of Kowloon. My eldest sibling, my only sister, then arrived in Nebraska at the age of 3, not knowing a word in any language and obsessed with hoarding anything she could get her hands on. The theory is that the orphanage was simply a dumping ground for children and they did not bother with education or have many resources. Weeks later they were asked if they would like a white boy from Ohio and along came my brother when he was something like 6 days old. So my parents went from zero to 2 kids in the span of about a month.

Less than a year later my Mom got pregnant and then popped me out. I assume they then realized I was a mistake and so went back to adopting. :) My youngest brother, who is black and Native American, arrived from Kansas at about the age of 1 month.

It was obviously never a secret that we had an adoptive family and we learned a lot about black, Native and Chinese culture, celebrated Chinese New Year, literally knew every black family in the small town we grew up in, lived on Native reserves for a few summers (my Dad was an archaeologist), etc. If they ever had any questions or concerns they knew it was always open for them to discuss it with our parents. Our very large extended family was 100% supportive if you can even say that about a bunch of people who never had/made an issue with any of it. Even my racist Southern Grandma who disliked all black people she did not know. Nowadays our extended family holiday dinners look like a meeting of the UN with whites, blacks, asians, muslims, jews, athiests, renecks, artsys, etc.

My sister and eldest brother have never really had any issue, and certainly no feelings of stigma or victimization about being adopted. My sister overcame her early lack of contact and education due to in large extent my Mom, who was a language special education teacher and probably as loving a person as one could be. She went on to get 3 university degrees and a long professional career. She is more well travelled than anyone I know and has even visted her orphange. Not to look for her bio parents (although she found out that even if she wanted to it would be impossible due to lack of paperwork) but just out of curiosity since she was in Hong Kong. My older brother went to university and was an Olympic and pro athlete and runs a very successful business. Neither one of them could care less about who their biological family is. After my sister's visit to Hong Kong I asked my older brother about it and he said something like "Why the fuck would I want to do that?" We get along great and have very similar personalities.

My younger brother is a different story though. A lot of it no doubt had to do with being one of the few black kids in a small, redneck white town. People would stare at him so he was very aware of his "otherness". He got called nigger. He would get watched by staff when he went into stores. All kinds of bullshit like that. It was a constant issue. Another factor is that he and my Dad had absolutely nothing in common and never really got along once he got into highschool. He did not give a shit about school and my parents were very academically inclined. He was completely irresponsible, extrordinarily self-centered and started acting up. I just recently realized that it started when my Dad developed a degenerative, progressively fatal disease with no cure. Maybe he was angry that my Dad was getting all the attention? Maybe he felt victimized by my brother and me giving him shit for not picking up the slack and being more supportive of our Dad? He would run away from home on a regular basis and only come back when he needed something, which my Mom would give to him. He would live in hell-holes and things would always go wrong and something would get broken or he would be evicted, etc. In his mind it was never his fault and he would not accept responsibility and it was always me that came to his rescue. He stopped going to school, eventually dropped out and never even finished high school. The first complete break in our relationship came when he and my Dad got into an argument and he physically attacked my disabled father and I jumped in and we duked it out until he ran away. That was the last time he ever saw my Dad alive. But of course he showed up at his funeral so he could act like the bereaved son and soak up the sympathy.

And so it went for many, many years. One of his "problems" is that he is incredibly charismatic and good-looking; he looks like a black Brad Pitt but better looking, with a better body. So he has always had women take care of him. My Mom has always given him money as he is a personal trainer and model whose income has always been inconsistent. I have bailed him out more times than I could count. Figuratively and literally. He had a son with a long-term partner and when that relationship came to an end he was charged with domestic abuse. I do not think anything happened but whatever. I had to come up with $10,000 cash bail on a Saturday morning to get him out. He moved in with me and I drove 90 minutes 3 times a week so he could see his son. For all of his flaws he was an excellent father who really loved his son. That went on for a year and a half until the charges were dropped. But he and the Mom hated each other so I still had to be the liasion in between the 2. For years. She was horribly cruel and manipulative even to me and he had it worse.

We had always got along amazingly but the relationship between him and the rest of the family began to unravel when he decided he was done trying to be a father to his son. It was too much work. Too mentally and emotionally tiring. To a great extent I could understand as the mother did everything she could do to make it hard on him to see his son. But I tried my damndest to talk him out of it. Perhaps I shouldn't have, but when I had used every other argument I could I even begged him not to reinforce a negative stereotype by leaving another black son without a father.

A few months later I had a bad break-up and, as I had been paying his mortgage and he was looking for a roomate, I offered to move in there. The night before the move I called to confirm that I would be there at such and such a time and he told me I could not bring my cat with me. When he already had 2 cats and a dog. And he would not relent since "I just don't want another cat here." "Umm... could you have not told me this a month ago?" "Do you understand what kind of position this puts me in?" At ten at night with ten hours before the movers show up. Too bad. Don't care.

My other brother was simply disgusted and my sister and Mom called him to say how unbelievable that was, especially considering all that I had done for him. He denied I had ever done anything to help him. So I emailed him once a day for ten days demanding the money I had lent him to pay his mortgage. He reported me to the police for harassment. I was so livid when the police called me. I told the cop to fuck off and mind his own business as this was a civil matter. I never tried to contact him again after that. My Mom and sister did but he would not get back to them.

That was 6 years ago. A month or so ago I was fixing something on my Mom's computer and saw that she sends him Xmas and birthday emails every year. And every year he does not respond. She told a good family friend that she cries all the time because she misses him so much. My sister emailed him a year ago and told him that our Mom has Alzheimers and he has not bothered to respond.

My nephew is in grade 12 now. I talk with him all the the and we go on vacations twice yearly at least. One of his friends told me that she looked his Dad up on FB and saw that he was posting pictures about meeting his "real family".

Going back to the original topic, as far as anyone knows he never had a desire to track down his bio Mom until after he abandoned us and am not sure which way the detective work went but he was the one who traveled several hours to meet them. There was no black man in the pictures so I guess he has not met his bio Dad. I might get some hate for this statement but I am unsure what he would have in common with them as he has always considered himself black and they are all Natives, obese, live in trailers and look they have had very hard lives. But apparently he now considers them his "real family". As I said, our mom would never have had an issue with meeting and getting to know them but I am not really sure in these circumstances since he has chosen to abandon his actual family. Twice now, both times when one parent was very sick. I think calling them his "real" family is simply wrong and maybe even cruel to our mother. Perhaps in this instance the adoptive parent is the one that has been victimized. We will never hear her side of the story though due to her disease.

Well shit, I did not start out with the intention, but that was by far the longest comment I have ever posted on any social media.

To finish on a happier note, my sister got knocked up in her last year of university, moved away so no one would know of her "shame" of having a child out of wedlock and gave the kid up for adoption. Only my Mom and I knew. That was 27 years ago and we have never spoken of it since. Not that it was taboo, it just did not come up. Two years ago the kid's Mom emailed my Mom asking if they were connected. My Mom was all confused so I handled it from there. First of all, I wanted to know if it was her quest or her daughter's quest. So she put me in touch with her daughter and everything was cool. My sister's first reaction when I told her was "What does she want?" and she was not ready to meet her. The kid and I kept in touch and about a year later my sister asked for her email address, emailed her and did not receive a response. I followed up with the kid a couple of weeks later and the email was in her spam folder! So they emailed, then spoke on the phone, then met, she eventually came to meet my Mom, my sister met the kid's parents, then we attended a large gathering of our family. And everything is great.

The odd thing is that they are so incredibly similar. They both have arts degrees, have traveled to dozens of countries, are in love with Jamaica (my sister lived there for years and the kid has spent 3 summers working there) and they are both obsessed with and have the exact same taste in clothing and jewelry. Next week end we are going to my younger brother's ex's house for dinner and my black nephew is going to meet the black/asian/jewish cousin he does not even know exists! So far, so good for that scenario.

[Fun Fact: My niece's cell phone was stolen from a bar and used by a gang-banger to phone the media trying to sell the cell phone video of Toronto mayor Rob Ford smoking crack.]

That is not adequate care. If they were nurses or doctors they should be reported to their professional organization. If not, reported up the work chain.

On another note, you seem to furthering the myth that men are mentally/emotionally stronger than women by using the term "man up".

#sicknotweak

Any article citing Gawker as a source of legal information needs to immediately be disregarded.

It seems that this article is predicting doom for reddit as it has lost the wholesale protection of 230 because of this. Bullshit.

As far as the case law so far, essentially 230 it applies if the intermediary (reddit) was neutral and unknowing about certain particular content posted through its servers. If they are aware of or positively participate with such content they lose their safe haven protection regarding that particular content. It only applies to each particular circumstance and does not eternally strip them of protection for other content. For example, if someone posted something illegal tomorrow that reddit was unaware or and did not actively interact with, they are not going to forego 230 protection because of what spez did. No matter how ridiculous that was.

spez apparently did write/alter/interact with the content himself or had a script do it or something. I guess he redirected negative comments aimed at him to the mods of TheDonald. In other words, the reddit CEO did become the publisher/speaker of that particular content and therefore threw away the protection of 230 for only that particular content.

That does NOT mean that the 230 safe haven protections will be stripped from the website as a whole. Or at least no one has ever argued that in the past as far as I know and no court has ever narrowed the protection so far. It is remotely possible that a court might find some evidence that the CEO of reddit is actively moderating all of the content of reddit, in which case 230 might be not apply to reddit as a whole, but I highly doubt that is ever going to happen.

Are the mods of TheDonald going to sue them/him for libel or nuisance, etc.? They might win if so. But that has nothing to do with anything else.

IAAL with a LLM in Internet law although no specific expertise in 230.

The highlight of my week (so far!) was on Monday when I attended an event for the #SickNotWeak mental health awareness campaign and a local youth suicide awareness group.

SickNotWeak is a campaign initiated by "famous" Canadian sportscaster Michael Landsberg to destigmatize mental illness, with an emphasis on depression because that is what he suffers from. A lot of the publicity for the campaign comes from sports figures who are willing to honest about their struggles. This was a dinner and speaking event with several very known well athletes who all have connections with mental illness.

Clint Malarchuk and Hayley Wickenheiser were the opening speakers.

Clint was incredibly emotional talking about his ups and downs and admitted he still has the bullet in his head from when he tried to kill himself, which is not something that was public knowledge before I do not think. He always had OCD and was a goalie who suffered a slit throat from a skate and was only saved by a team doctor who stuck his fingers into his neck to pinch off the loose carotid artery ends. He never watched the footage but when he saw a similar accident happen several years later he developed PTSD and was prescribed anti-psychotics so he could continue playing, but that was the end of his career. Big tough guy that could not handle seeing a bit of blood. But that was not something you talked about back then. He began boozing and drugging and only sought help after his 2nd suicide attempt.

Hayley is the greatest female hockey player of all-time. A household name in Canada. She went into a deep depression after losing the Olympic gold medal game at age 19. She was always the best and all of a sudden was a big failure. Even though it is standard procedure now, that was not a phenomenon that sports psychologists managed at that time. She also had very bad post-partum and had a NHL friend that ODed. She probably had the best laugh line of the night when she said (about the time that the US just missed an empty netter that you have never seen a bunch of women so happy about 2 inches.

Theo Fleury, an NHL superstar, was the headline speaker and it would be an understatement to say that he was an incredible speaker. He grew up in a household with 2 addicts as parents, was always told that he was too small to play in the NHL and so had "not good enough" syndrome, was mentored by a coach that promised him it would happen then raped him hundreds of times, ended up drinking a case of vodka and snorting $3,500 of coke a week, would take the Trump helicopter to Atlantic City after games and, after gambling and screwing hookers all night, would get back to NYC for morning practice. He got kicked out of the NHL and after buying a gun and sticking it in his mouth decided he needed to talk.

Theo had a very good point at the end of his talk. As someone standing on a stage with a mike in front of a big audience, most people want to hear laughter or clapping and whatnot. But he likes it the best when there is absolute silence since that means people are thinking. There was a lot of clapping and laughing, but also a lot of silence. And he was masterful in utilizing those moments.

I can't stress how much he was an amazing speaker. That is what he does now full time. If you ever get a chance to hear him speak, please do so. We were the event sponsor so he sat at my table and was quite chatty during the 4 hour event.

Other hockey guys with local connections were there as well: Steve Larmer, Cory Stillman, Jody Hull, etc. Luke Richardson talked briefly about the foundation he started after his 14 year old daughter committed suicide. His 14 year old daughter.

I have never asked for a picture like this before but but here is a pic of me and a rather dapper Theo Fleury:

It is near where I grew up. I know the map better than the back of my hand.

I have been in major downtowns all my adult life and just moved mostly back into the country. I love cutting the lawn as it is such a simple pleasure for me.

And I love sitting on the dock (sorry about the up-coming shit pics)

And snowmobiling.

But really? Mostly for the animal life I get to see.

And I am very lucky as I have telecommuted for the last few years and none of my clients care where I am. So here I am.

Well this is a very different answer than I would have provided ten years ago when I was closing deals for many millions of dollars, helping people make lots of money, knew every great restaurateur and bartender in town, etc. It was all about being social and financial then.

Then things changed. Now I am proud of learning to do something that is very contrary to my nature. I am learning to be patient with my parent that has dementia. They are just starting to accept that they need outside care. I can, as I did today, sit in the doctor's office with them for three hours and listen to the same stories about their childhood without telling them I just heard that story 2 minutes ago. I can make dinner that tastes like shit to me because that is what they want. I can listen to the same complaints dozens of times about how the hedges are not cut in the right way. I try but I am not as good as I should be. I do not have the temperament to be a caregiver.

But I am trying and getting better. So I am proud that I am making their life better with practicing care giving and patience.

Dear networkdynamics,

In your experience with social on-line communities, do brand new users spamming a site with questions for personal gain when they have not contributed at all contribute to a community and engage users?

That just stinks. To support an academic project I may still complete the survey but you might have thought about engaging and understanding the community before you asked it to work for you. Perhaps your team will learn from this ham-fisted, loufoque attempt at outreach to a bunch of people that are very internet/social media saavy. There are many people here that are incredibbly experienced and would be very insightful but I doubt this message is going to engage them. sigh

Well this doesn't exemplify humanity but this popped into my mind.

You know that person that you met maybe once a long time ago and still think about on a fairly regular basis? You never know how many times you are that person as well and I am sure everyone is that person to at least one other. Anyone has the ability to effect anyone else's life, for the good or the bad, at any time.

I have a few but I will mention just one. My ex's father was having heart surgery many years ago and neither her or his wife drove so I have to go out there to drive them all around. I took the commuter train instead of driving for some reason. Took them in for the surgery, stayed for a few days, picked him up and drove him home.

My ex wanted to stay overnight and so decided to as well and she decided to get absofuckinglutely tanked. I was really tired and she would not let me go to sleep. And then she got aggressive and so I thought it would be best if I just left. 3 a.m. when it was -20 Celsius out and I did not have my car. But the train station was only a block away so I would just go hang out there until first train at 5. When I got there I realized Sunday trains did not start until 10. So I hunkered down on a bench and tried to get some sleep. It was pretty shitty and I felt like shit but just put my hat down and tried to ignore people as they wandered in. I was eventually woken up as the train pulled into the station by some maybe 85 y.o. Indian man. (I was a 30s white guy).

I was pretty bleary and hadn't shaven in 3 days and all curled up on the bench with my backpack so I probably really looked like shit. Then he walked over to the machine and asked me where I was going as he was going to by me a ticket. He thought I was a bum!

I was so touched that this old, retired, immigrant would be looking after a stranger like that. I thanked him but declined. We ended getting off at the same stop and so I asked him if he time for breakfast or a coffee. And that I would be buying. He just had time for a small coffee as he was on his way to open up the family store (and he was 85 but fit as shit) and so we had a nice little chat and then went on our way.

I have thought about his kindness and his work ethic probably a few times a year for the last 10+ years. So yeah for me that is definitely one of those people.