Wednesday, October 31, 2007

SSRI reduction...

Lately I've been wondering whether my short-term memory has been compromised by using SSRI's (alias Prozac) for OCD/Depression (I've been on prescription for that for the last 8 years or so)... I read some stuff online which was pretty damning about the stuff... so I decided pretty much unilaterally to gradually reduce the dosage at 5% per week initially, and see what happens.

I've dropped from 3 caps a day (60mg) nearly down to 2 per day (40mg); so far I don't think I am having any huge adverse effects. I think if anything, I'm feeling more clear-headed and 'with-it'. Time will tell.

I may rethink the reduction strategy when I'm at 2 per day; perhaps adjust to 5% of that dose reduction per week.

I'm pretty much aware that I really need to keep regular hours of sleep etc. and get some exercise .... have been doing pretty well on the former front, but still need to come up to speed on the latter.

I have walked to work a few times lately, listening to MP3's on the way (makes it a lot less boring - cheers to David Allen for his excellent 'Getting Things Done - Fast' CD's :) ).
Need to make it a real habit.

Alternatives could be push-biking (cycling) and maybe roller-blading :)

Wish me luck and / or willpower :)

Biennial Update?

Dang, I have been busy....
I thought it was about time I updated ze blog...
I've been working with QuickCircuit Limited (http://www.quickcircuit.co.nz) in Albany, Auckland since about March 2005.... doing Linux on PXA255 platform (Intel XScale).

We're doing pretty well, I think... so far we have for our platform(s):
LCD display
Sound
IDE
Ethernet of several flavours
Serial ports
LED's (W00t!)
And now USB on the way.

Some hardware has been done in FPGA's and/or CPLD's using VHDL (and some 3rd-party Verilog).

Altogether, enjoying it... thought very tiring and stressful sometimes - usual for this kind of work though, really...

Great bunch of people to work with; my direct boss Mario is superb - no BS whatsoever, entirely reasonable, extremely smart and has become a good friend to boot :)