Friday - early

That alarm went off early and I woke up feeling like hell on feet.  Headache and a feeling of general nastiness.  Fasting - you don't do it for a long time and the side effects can be pretty gruesome one the first several days. Body ridding itself of toxins - which is one of the reasons I wanted to do this fast - but also start my diet up again.  And praying . 

But of the greatest interest to me regarding fasting is the idea that it can help prevent the onset of dementia/Alzheimer's.  I've read quite a bit of material about it, the only problem is there have been no clinical studies on humans, only on rodents.  Why, I have no idea, it would seem prudent that they would do testing on humans to see if there is any benefit.  

For a little info, AI comes up with this: "Intermittent fasting has been shown to improve dementia pathologies in rodents, such as neuroinflammation, synaptic dysfunction, and brain insulin resistance. It may also promote longevity, improve cognition, and increase the generation of new brain cells. In addition, animal studies have shown that intermittent fasting can remove beta-amyloid protein from the brain, which is a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease."

 I have been toying with AI because it is here and it is here to stay. Like it or not, you might as well get used to the idea of having it around and if it's going to be around, you might as well learn how to use it. Sort of like smart phones, they came out and I wanted nothing to do with them for many years after they were on the market and had already gained worldwide popularity.  My resistance was futile, as the Borg like to say it, smart phones are an invaluable tool.  I do believe that there are down sides to smart phones, one of which is not having to stuff things into memory so much and therefore, not using your brain as much to navigate through any given day.  

Anyway, I have discussed the fact that there is Alzheimer's in my dad's family lines including my dad himself, who succumbed to symptoms that arose out of having Alzheimer's.  His dad as well.  There's 3 of us brothers, I hate to even think it, but it seems likely that one of us will end up with it.  I hope not, that's for sure, but I have given thought to what, if anything, I could do to prevent or slow it's arrival at my doorstep if I do, indeed, acquire this dreadful disease.  

If you have ever watched anyone going through it, it is one of the most vile and evil (imo) diseases a person can get.  It takes the you away from you.  When you can look at your own offspring and not even remember who they are, that is evil. Not that the person is evil, but the disease itself it from the pit of hell as far as I'm concerned.  They FDA approved a new drug last year that slows the onset of Alzheimer's.  I guess what I really want to do is have on of those tests to determine your mental acuity, cognitive ability, etc.  Whatever they do, they can determine if you have dementia or are going to get it.  

Yes, I think about such things considering my age, tho I started thinking about it long ago, watching my father go through it.  If fasting can help - there isn't any real proof yet that it can - but if it can help, I'm going to do it.  A side effect is weight loss and toxin removal. In fact, there are many benefits to fasting that I am not going to go into because it's very early and I am about to leave for work.  

Nacogoches and then Lufkin this morning.  

Speaking of that, yesterday.....

That dude was there before I arrived at Gurdon.  I got rather irritated rather quickly.  This guy doing this 2 days in a row?  I decided I would contact management to find out what's going on because I had already confronted him yesterday about showing up before me.  He is basically doing one full run a day, or something akin to that depending on how everything goes everywhere he needs to go.  That's all well and fine, if he wants to spend his life in a truck, have at it.  However, I am a "senior" driver as the manager likes to put it, I've only been there since September but since I was hired before this dude, I have seniority over him. 

I do like the seniority system. It only works, however, if it is enforced.  Turns out he had been there for quite a while, after the manager called me back, the driver got in his truck and left. I'm glad I didn't confront him again, there is no sense in lighting up a firecracker to stick into someone's mouth if you don't really need to.  The manager said this is actually the dispatcher's fault, he went off on her.  This is really poor dispatching, he continued after an introduction to what this driver is doing.  I'm sure they must love him doing all of that work, perhaps they should give him a better truck.

They don't have better trucks and apparently aren't getting better trucks. This is how you lose contracts.  

I did ask the manager if he never does late loading as the driver claimed.  When the driver said that to me yesterday, that just irritated me even more. "I don't care, this is my loading time, which means this is also my washout time".  I let him know in no uncertain terms that I am not intimated by his speech and I am not going to tolerate him jumping ahead of me.  If you don't put your foot down with people like that, they will not stop. They will think they got away with it and they will get away with it for eternity.  

Well whatever.  I'm not trying to be totally negative here, it's just that situation came back into my mind.  I'm actually trying to be positive that this is going to be a great day, everything is going to go smoothly and if it doesn't, that's just part of the deal with the trucking industry.  I have a different trailer and I don't think I've had this one before.  It looks like everything is good on it at least.

With that, I must depart hence for hither yonder lands.

G'day.