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All posts for the month October, 2015

I originally wrote this in early September, but seems appropriate as these issues have continued to re-occur throughout the month.

Early September:

The fibro pain has decreased a lot over the past few weeks. The intense pain episodes have become less and less common, but I still get sick. When the storms, remnants of a hurricane that fizzles, came through here, my sinuses went haywire. This isn’t that unusual and will usually alleviate itself within a couple of days, unless it becomes a sinus infection. Tuesday I went out for my morning power walk, got rained on a few times, came back and put in a full day of work.

I felt decent that day, but my sinuses were clogged and not recovering. I woke up Wednesday with a sinus headache and clogged sinuses, so I worked from home. That afternoon I had what I thought was a fibro fever, low grade, but none of the usual pain, mostly fatigue. I assumed it was the fibro, and why not? Fibro symptoms love to change, randomly, without warning.

Two days later I’m still fighting a fever that hovers around 100.0f, my fibro fevers rarely go above 99.8f. My sinuses are barely starting to recover, but they are. I’m not the only one, friends and one of my doctor’s have been having allergy or sinus problems this week. Probably something in the air, the pollen count has been higher lately.

I have been experiencing sinus infections like this for at least twenty years. Sometimes I will go months, but they always return. One year I had reoccurring sinus infections most of November and December. I discovered that Oil of Oregano in between meals administered orally helped me recover, and tea tree oil in my humidifier would help my sinuses clear up a little. Fibro flareups remind me a lot of sinus infections, except they usually don’t affect my sinuses. Since my sinus issues are usually allergy related, I always blame this on the fibro. Maybe some day I’ll learn the difference for good.

I still believe that I will overcome this. I continue to exercise and work to keep my diet healthy. My energy levels have improved significantly, fatigue is not nearly as bad as it was six months ago, and I’m getting strong. A healthy lifestyle may not cure my fibro, but it’s the best chance I have at managing it.

A couple of years ago I discovered the Odroid, a single board computer similar to the Raspberry Pi, only powerful. I invested in an Odroid U3 and various accessories. While I never full utilized all that I have available for it, the system has been invaluable over the years. I have run various servers, controlled usb cryptocurrency miners, ambient atmospheric conditions, and as a airplay interface to my stereo. I have since added two more Odroids to my collection.

Odroid XU4

The high performance NAS. Built into the rather spiffy CloudShell case with LCD and SATA interface, this is the most powerful Odroid available at the time of this being published. Octocore running at 2Ghz with 2GB/ram, 2 USB 3.0 ports, 1 USB 2.0 port, Gigabit Ethernet, a 32GB eMMC card, and some other spiffy technical specs available on the manufacturer website.

Since I was constructing a NAS I opted for the CloudShell case. Set it up running Raspbian with a 120GB internal SSD, and two external 4TB external USB 3.0 drives. From my quad-core desktop over gigabit, to the Odroid’s internal SSD I will achieve 60MB/sec transfer. Previously I used an Raspberry Pi B+ as the NAS server, it was hella slow. This is an amazing upgrade.

Odroid C1+

Purchased with the sole purpose of being a Hifi audio player. I added the C1+ specific Hifi shield, also available from Hardkernel, for audiophile grade audio into my Outlaw (they make good quality stuff for the $$$) preamp. Installed the Volumio audio player distribution. While the distro has some bugs, it is working extremely well for me, possibly the best remotely controllable media player I’ve used on a Linux system. The combination of the two components, the Volumio distro, plus the amps, creates an easy to use interface with a beautiful clear sound.

Odroid U3

The U3 is now at the beginning stages of a new project, a Gentoo installation. In additional to the on-board eMMC, there is an external ssd. This is my primary experimental system.

Why Gentoo?

Gentoo is my preferred Linux distribution.  I’m a fan of customization. Due to some of my personality quarks (some might say disabilities), most standard workflows slow me down. I have spent eleven years tweaking and customizing my main Gentoo desktop install and interface. Gentoo allows me to easily setup the system exactly the way I work best.

 

Continued in Part 2 (to be completed and published middle of October)