health

So, the weather here in Berlin has finally turned into something resembling Summer and what happens? Right, I catch a nasty cold! That was Wednesday. Today - Saturday - after spending the past three days entirely indoors, in bed with drawn curtains and herbal tea with outside temparatures reaching 31 degress centrigrade I finally feel well enough to actually do something (as opposed to just being a vegetable).

Of course there are piles of real work[tm] that need to be done, but I be damned if I did any of that kind of stuff, while the rest of city is sitting in cafes or at lakes (or both) enjoying all those nice summer things that my current state of health makes me loath rather than cherish: sun, water, grilled food and alcoholic beverages…

So while the wife and kids are at the municipal pool I’ve decided to tackle a small mini project that I’ve had in my mind for a while: writing a script that automatcially creates a Plone Product Skeleton . You see, the best way to customize a plone site is to write a Product for it to which you then add your custom templates and what not - but the actual process of setting up such a product is rather tedious (and error prone - I don’t know how many times I’ve restarted a zope instance wondering why that damned new product of mine wouldn’t show up in portal_quickinstaller just because I missed a hyphen somewhere.)

So here you have it: written under the influence of Dolo-Dobendan a nice little convenience script that takes two arguements: the name of your product and the folder where it will create it (usually simply the Products folder of your Zope instance). Check out the details and the downloadable archive in the geek section.

Phew! That was close! I almost got a really bad cold - again... after not taking any vitamin C for over one week (I was fine and felt stupid spending money on something of suddenly dubious benefit.)

Yesterday night, while (still) hacking away at the Datenschleuder - this time with Andy at the club - I suddenly began to feel really bad. Runny nose, occasional sneeze, high temperature, burning eyes, cold limbs, the works. I soon had to call it quits. Thankfully Erdgeist gave me a ride on his already infameous scooter and gave me a packet of some suspicious looking "wellness bath"-powder.

Well, I was totally frozen from a sub-zero bike-ride without gloves or other proper gear (besides a helmet) and felt like shit. I had half a mind to just go to bed and accept that I would be sick tomorrow and would have to cancel things and just stay in bed. But then I decided "No!" and made myself two hot spicy instant soups, two cups of herbal tea, took 4.5 grams of vitamin C and a really hot bath with the aforementioned substance. After bravely drinking one liter of water I finally sunk into my pillow.

And wow! Nine hours later(! Thanks again, Mascha, for letting me sleep and taking care of the kids, you're an angel!!) I woke up feeling fine! I couldn't believe it...)

Of course, this could also be attributed purely to the provberbial "good night's rest", but this has been the third time now, that I seem to have been 'saved by the C'... I'm getting another box on Monday... ;-)

Still feeling very feeble. Second trip to our practitioner showed, that Josh and I have caught a virus that has been going round (half the kita's got it, for instance).

So when I went running (and sweating) in the cold without a hat (and lateron that night into a bar with Erdgeist and Kent consuming copious amounts of an alcoholic beverage made of water, barley, hops and malt) this had no beneficial impact on the fact, that I had been tending a two year old with said infection all Sunday...

We're slowly recovering, drinking lots of water and herbal tea, but Josh has really been quite shaken by the experience... Poor boy! He's still too young to understand...

One thing stuck with me: when we went into the car to get to the practitioner I carried Josh down the stairs. But I was so wobbly and weak that twice I was scared to fall over. Now, I'm usually a big, strong and ablebodied person and feeling this painful despair of not being fit enough for basic, every-day tasks has been quite humbling. I mean, for many old and/or sick people out there, it feels every single day like that... Kind of puts things into perspective, doesn't it?

Thanks to all the well-wishers, both online and offline. And special extra thanks to Mascha who has been there for us day and night during the past 72 hours. You're the best!!

Have been sick and miserable in Bed for the past 48 hours with high fever and headache. I honestly believe, that I've never quite felt so ill in my entire life. And the irony of it? I caught it from going running in the park on Sunday at sub-zero temperatures...

Three days ago I decided to start running again. But I've literally been too busy... Even today it didn't look good. I wanted to install a local copy of my plone sites on my powerbook (to show them off to a prospective client at a restaurant without net access lateron) using the 2.0RC3 installer for Mac OS X from Jim Roepcke. Which, due to some dependencies of CMFBoard took much longer than planned. I thought, what the hell, and simply went for a 20 minute run in the Humboldthain Park (actually, just there and back...)

At the time I was quite frustrated not to have enough time to do it "properly" and was so bent on "just getting it over with" that I completely forgot about the good feeling one gets after having done a run. But later, when I was having dinner with the (no longer prospective!) client and dug in with righteous satisfaction I realized how much I had been missing running ;-)

I do have the advantage of having done lots of sports in my teens and early twens. Running, cycling, weightlifting (not bodybuilding!) but I am now at an age where I'm faced with the fact, that if I don't change something soon, I will become fat and unfit...

Having arrived at that conclusion I figured, I'd start with a healthier diet, after all that's the easier part, innit? Turns out, not so... I currently simply have no appetite for healthy stuff at all, but rich, meaty stuff and plain old junk food have got quite an appeal. And Vitamin C alone is just not enough...

And then I realized, that that's just consequent. I mean, what more does a body need, that only walks from one computer to the other? Exactly! And then I remembered the stuff I used to eat, when I still did sports. Right! Yoghurt, muesli and sometimes even gasp! some fruit...

So here it is: I guess I'm gonna have to pick up running again... There I said it! Well, I'll keep you posted ;-)